Rehoboth Carpenter family

The Rehoboth Carpenter Family was a historic American family from 1638 who helped to found the town of Rehoboth, Massachusetts. Savage in his "A Genealogical Dictionary of The First Settlers of New England, Before 1692" traced the recorded origins of this family to a father (b. 1576) and son William Carpenter (1605-1659) who sailed for Weymouth, Massachusetts, on the "Bevis" from Southampton, England, in 1638. Nothing more is known of the father in Massachusetts and he is presumed to have perished in passage or shortly thereafter.

(b. May 1,1925), who descends from Joseph Carpenter, the third or fourth son of William jr.

The Rehoboth Carpenter family provided many soldiers to the American Revolution. Notable was a Captain Benajah Carpenter a founding member of the United States Army Field Artillery Corps under Henry Knox. Among other Carpenters in the subsequent 1800s was George Rice Carpenter (1863–1909), born in Labrador and a graduate of Harvard in 1886. Carpenter taught at Harvard from 1888 to 1890 and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1890 to 1893. In 1893 he became a professor of rhetoric at Columbia University. Carpenter authored a long list of literature textbooks, rhetoric and biographies of Whittier, Whitman, and Longfellow. A classics library at Columbia is named in his honor.

Also of note was the painter Francis Bicknell Carpenter (1830-1900) whose work hangs in the United States Capitol. Carpenter also resided with President Lincoln in the White House and published a one volume memoir of his stay. The English origins were obscure for this family until the discovery of parish records in "Bishops' Transcripts". The two William Carpenters had resided in the Berkshire village of Shalbourne, just outside Hungerford. The appearance of William Carpenter Sr. in Shalbourne coincided with a childless Thomas Carpenter and wife Alice　at adjacent Hungerford. Thomas Carpenter was a dyer and leading merchant of the town, who with others, gained the incorporation of the town from the crown. Thomas died in 1625 and an Alice was buried in Shalbourne just prior to the Carpenter emigration to Massachusetts. William Carpenter Jr. had married an Abigail Briant at Shalbourne in 1625. A search of "Westcourt Manor Records" reveals William Carpenter Sr. as a resident of Shalbourne and Westcourt Manor from 1608. Manor records from Culham, Oxfordshire contain various references to a father-son William Carpenter whose activities conform to Shalbourne records.

a Thomas Carpenter was mayor in the 16th century and has a place in the economic history of England.

The Carpenter family was a joint founder of the Newman Congregational Church, located in Rumsford, Rhode Island and formerly part of Rehoboth, Massachusetts.

References

*Carpenter, Amos B., "A Genealogical History of the Rehoboth Branch of the Carpenter Family in America", Amherst Massachusetts, 1898.
*Bowen, Richard Lebaron. "Early Rehoboth, Documented Historical Studies of Families and Events in This Plymouth Colony Township."(Rehoboth, Massachusetts: Privately printed [by the Rumford Press, Concord, N.H.] , 1945-1950). 4 vols.
*Zubrinsky, Eugene Cole. 'The Family of William(2) Carpenter of Rehoboth, Massachusetts, With the English Origin of the Rehoboth Carpenters.' "The American Genealogist,"70 (October 1995), pp. 193-204. [Reassessment of the English origins of William Carpenter (1605-1660) and his wife Abigail Briant.]

External links

* http://www.usgennet.org/usa/topic/newengland/savage/
* [http://members.cox.net/jrcrin001/Wm1ofBevis.pdf William1 Carpenter Sketch (2008)]
* [http://members.cox.net/jrcrin001/carplink.htm Links to Current Rehoboth and Providence Carpenter Sketches and Journal Articles]