Talk:Rehoboth Carpenter family/Archive 1

This page is a discussion archive from Talk:Rehoboth_Carpenter_family.

Cleanup
Hopefully self-evident. This article appears incomplete, non-notable (for the moment), and lacking in sources. Ian Cairns 18:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup and additional information
The genealogical claims of the entry are amply supported by the Amos B. Carpenter genealogical reference cited by the author. It is a respected and largely reliable work, on microfiche now at the Library of Congress. It can't be accessed on line. A good presidential genealogical database is online, maintained by the University of Hull. It too supports the author's claims and could be cited in the article. The "two American presidents" in question are Bush 41 and Bush 43, who trace their descent to the Rehoboth branch Carpenters through Flora Sheldon, who was the mother of Prescott Sheldon Bush and the descendant of Benjamin and Renew (Weeks) Carpenter. Project Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter is a direct lineal descendant, from this same couple, but through a different line, through Carpenter sons. This claim too is documented in the Amos B. Carpenter reference work. (KC Stoever 19:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)).


 * Respect is accorded Amos B. Carpenter's A Genealogical History of the Rehoboth Branch of the Carpenter Family in America (Amherst, Mass., 1898) only by the uninitiated. As someone with extensive experience publishing corrections to the volume's innumerable errors, I can say without equivocation that it is the furthest thing from a "reliable work." Click here for links to current scholarship (sketches and journal articles) pertaining to the Rehoboth and Providence Carpenter families and correcting many of Amos B. Carpenter's errors, claims, and misrepresentations.GeneZub (talk) 23:27, 18 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You are both right. The ABC, 1898, 900+ page tome was remarkable for its day. And many errors have been found and many corrections have been incorporated into different works. The genealogy of famous people on this line are at this time mute. The basics of the article need to be focused on. Later, a section on famous descendants could be added. If Iwannafish would communicate many of these edit revisions could be resolved. Please let us not squabble, lets focus on the basics of this article.

John R. Carpenter Jrcrin001 (talk) 03:01, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Discussion
In general, there are many suppositions and unsupported facts in this article.

It needs better editing and cleanup. For example, the Culham connection has no documentation and does not mention the will errors found.

Amos B. Carpenter's 900 page 1898 work on the Rehoboth Carpenter Family was remarkable for its day. However, there has been many corrections to the English lineage and families therein over the years.

The best work on the immigrant Rehoboth Carpenter Family is by Gene Zubrinsky. He and others have confirmed will transcription errors nullifying the English connection previously made by Carpenter Researchers. He and others have culled the wheat from the shafts of misconceptions in many areas.

A work in progress on the two William Carpenter immigrants (Rehoboth, MA and Providence, RI) is at: http://members.cox.net/jrcrin001/carplink.htm

John R. Carpenter La Mesa, CA Jrcrin001 (talk) 17:14, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup
This last re-write and clean up is much better! Good Job Gene!

John R. Carpenter La Mesa, CA Jrcrin001 (talk) 16:45, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

April 2009
Iwanafish This is a warning for your disruptive edits. Caution: do not violate Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy by inserting commentary or your personal analysis into an article, as you have done with Rehoboth Carpenter family.

Please use the article discussion page to post your arguements for or against. Repeatedly removing another's edit without discussion or reason is disruptive. Please communicate & discuss, please do not try to create an edit war. Several people have tried (by sending email to your various emails for some time) to communicate with you to help establish a neutral point of view regarding this and other articles.

I am asking a few Wiki editors to monitor Rehoboth Carpenter family.

John R. Carpenter La Mesa, CA Jrcrin001 (talk) 23:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Jrcrin001, I think it may be possible that Iwanafish objects to the links to the files hosted on your webpage being in the article, although I can't say for sure. --Pixelface (talk) 10:01, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I have no objection to having them removed, because of using one source, you can use many other secondary sources that would accomplish the same thing. Even issues of "self promotion" could be easily resolved - IF - communications could be established. But, I am afraid it is all or nothing with Iwannafish at this point. Even if he was banned from edting on this page, he has been known to use an alias to change things back.

-- John R. Carpenter Jrcrin001 (talk) 16:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

what is going on here?
okay it looks like I've stepped into a pile of something unpleasant going on in this article's edit history. Please discuss reasons for reverting to an older, unformatted version of this article and try to reach consensus, thanks riffic (talk) 07:31, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * why do you keep reverting this? what exactly is self-promotional? can't you just make the changes to the version with the appropriate wiki structure intact, rather than revert to a pre-2007 version of this article? riffic (talk) 01:17, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Clarification
This page's section headed "April 2009" is addressed to a particular contributor (Iwanafish), whose quality of work and editing behavior I will, out of civility, not characterize here. But since this article is now the object of an editing war (instigated by Iwanafish), readers should know that the current version's reliability cannot be guaranteed. To ensure that the article they are viewing is the most accurate and complete of those submitted, readers should return to the article, click on the "history" tab, and ascertain that the version identified at the top of the list is either my contribution or another editor's reversion to my most recent submission, dated 5 April 2009 (5,439 bytes); if it is neither, click on my version of that date.

Readers will note that no version of this article contains fact-specific source citations. In the case of my edits, this is because I have good reason to expect that the necessary investment of time and trouble would be nullified (as in the case of my previous edits of this article) by the wholesale deletion of my work. The sources listed in the References and External Links sections, however, include journal articles of mine and self-published (online) sketches, all of which contain primary-source citations covering many of this article's facts. Wikipedia's verifiability policy permits the citation of self-published material "when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." I have contributed about a dozen and a half articles to leading genealogical and local-history publications. Of that number are three Carpenter-related journal articles, one published in The American Genealogist (1995), the other two in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (2005). The cited sketches, moreover, were prepared at the request of John R. Carpenter, in whose Carpenters' Encyclopedia of Carpenters, 2009 (data DVD) they also appear.GeneZub (talk) 04:35, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I found this article since it was in Category:Uncategorized pages and made an edit, but it looks like I stepped into an edit-war which was going on. I've looked at the history of this article and this version from April 5 looks much better than the current version. What content exactly are people having disagreements about? --Pixelface (talk) 08:51, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
 * this seems to be a case of WP:OWNERSHIP. I'm not an expert on this topic but it seems weird that a somewhat workable version of this article keeps getting reverted without any discussion. riffic (talk) 09:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe Iwanafish takes issue with the citations to Eugene Zubrinsky in the article. It would help if Iwanafish expressed their concerns on this talkpage. --Pixelface (talk) 09:45, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Iwanafish is self promoting his own views without documentation or discussion. While GeneZub has tried to reach a compromise, Iwanafish refuses ANY communication. I have seen many copies of email requests to all of his known email addresses requesting him to compromise and be reasonable. Note: He has been known for over a decade in Carpenter Genealogy Research circles.  I do not know what to do at this point. Iwannfish can be very stuborn and ... well, you get the idea. Please note he has had problems on other articles also. John R. Carpenter Jrcrin001 (talk) 16:16, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Over a period of weeks prior to my first edit, I contacted Iwanafish a number of times by e-mail, asking that he "consider" rewriting the article; he failed to reply or to act on my request. (He is known by name to RootsWeb's Carpenter mailing-list subscribers for his wild-eyed speculations and, especially [but not necessarily] when challenged, his personal attacks.) As a courtesy to Iwanafish, I retained in my initial edits many of his errors and baseless claims, which I introduced with phrases such as "previous claims herein," "said previously herein," "according to a previous contributor," and "it is said." In each case, I then inserted either a correction or a reference to a refutation in another source (see my edit of 4 April 2009). (Because I listed references and external links to sources of which I am the author, Iwanafish raised the false issue of self-promotion; it's a red herring. If one's own work is the best authority on the subject [Iwanafish knows very well that it is], one is obliged to cite it.) When Iwanafish, who first removed all vestiges of my work on 19 March 2009, did so on 4 April 20009 (see his edit of 4 April 2009), my good will ran out. I returned the favor by reverting to my then most recent version, which I revised so that the facts (or current state of knowledge) are now presented without reference to the errors they correct and claims they discredit. For Iwanafish, the real issue is not my alleged self-promotion. Nor can he possibly believe that his data (which he repeatedly restores but cannot support) is more sound than mine (which he repeatedly deletes but cannot refute); accuracy is clearly not his concern. It is, as riffic surmises, entirely a matter of WP:OWNERSHIP. GeneZub (talk) 01:37, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Sunday, 19 April 2009
 * Please use the following 2 sections to compromise on this article. Insert your pluses and minuses in the 2 following versions. If Iwannafish or any other does not make an effort that should speak louder than the written word.
 * John R. Carpenter

Jrcrin001 (talk) 03:12, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

5 April 2009 version
Members of the Rehoboth Carpenter family were among the first settlers of Rehoboth, Massachusetts. William1 Carpenter (b. c1575), his namesake son, William2 Carpenter (c1605-1658/9), and the latter man's wife and children (then numbering four) arrived on the Bevis from Southampton, England, in 1638. They had previously lived in Shalbourne, an English parish near Hungerford that straddled the boundary between Wiltshire and Berkshire. Nothing is known of William1 in Massachusetts, and he is presumed to have died by the time the family settled at Rehoboth, in 1644. William2 Carpenter first appears in New England records in 1640, as a resident of Weymouth, Massachusetts. He was among the founders (at Weymouth in late 1643) of the Plymouth Colony town of Rehoboth (settled 1644). His son, William3 Carpenter (1631-1702/3), was for many years Rehoboth town clerk, by virtue of which his name—not that of his father—appears with some frequency in Plymouth Colony records, in association with a number of local vital-records lists that he certified and forwarded to colony authorities.

The Rehoboth Carpenters' English origins were obscure until the discovery of Bishops' Transcripts of Shalbourne parish records containing marriage, baptismal, and burial records pertaining to them. Among these records is that of William1's marriage in 1625 to Abigail Briant of Shalbourne. A search of Westcourt Manor tenants' records reveals William1 Carpenter as a copyholder at Westcourt Manor in Shalbourne from 1608 to late 1637.

There is no record to confirm it, but it is said that certain Rehoboth Carpenters were among the founders of the Rehoboth (Newman) Congregational Church, located in present-day Rumford, Rhode Island (site of the original Rehoboth settlement). This much we know: William2 Carpenter's admission as a Massachusetts Bay Colony freeman from Weymouth in 1640 required church membership. The minister at Weymouth was Rev. Samuel Newman, most of whose congregation accompanied him to Rehoboth, where he was also the minister. William2 Carpenter was one of Rehoboth's fifty-eight original proprietors and is buried in Old Rehoboth (Newman Church) Cemetery. (While records of the time provide no direct evidence as to the religious affiliation of William2 of Rehoboth, he was certainly not a Baptist. In this regard, he is sometimes confused with William1 Carpenter of Providence. But even the latter man’s Baptist orthodoxy was impugned by Roger Williams in a 1655 letter to the Massachusetts Bay General Court.)

Among the many Rehoboth Carpenter descendants who fought in the American Revolution was Captain Benajah Carpenter, a founding member of the United States Army Field Artillery Corps under Henry Knox. Another distinguished product of this family was George Rice Carpenter (1863–1909), born in Labrador and a graduate of Harvard in 1886. He taught at Harvard from 1888 to 1890 and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1890 to 1893. In 1893 he became a professor of English rhetoric at Columbia University and authored a long list of textbooks on literature and 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 memoir of his stay. Project Mercury astronaut M. Scott Carpenter (b. May 1,1925) descends from Joseph Carpenter, the fourth son of William2.

19 April 2009 version
The Rehoboth Carpenter family was a historic American family from 1638 that helped 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. The son William Carpenter Jr. appears in copious Plymouth Colony records and in the writings of John Winthrop. He was among the founders of the new Rehoboth Colony in 1645. Plymouth Colony records show him as a sympathizer of the newly emerging Baptist movement in America. The portrait of him in Winthrop's writings, as well as the Plymouth Colony records, present a man of intense religious conviction as well as compassion. His many descendants in America have played their part in every aspect of American history, including two U.S. presidents and one Project Mercury astronaut, M. Scott Carpenter (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. The Carpenters had inhabited Culham as a prosperous yeoman family from 1533 with a Thomas Carpenter of Culham and tenant of the Abbey of Abingdon. Carpenter tenants of the abbey extend back to the 1400s elsewhere in Berkshire.

William Carpenter Sr. served as assessor of fines in the Culham Manor Court. Many pages of Latin records bearing his name are now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. William Carpenter Sr. educated his eldest son Robert at Oxford for the church. Many of what were perhaps Robert's books made there way to Massachusetts in the possession of Carpenter's son William Carpenter Jr. (b. 1605). In nearby Reading a Thomas Carpenter was mayor and has a place in the economic history of England.

Compromise version 20 April 2009
The Rehoboth Carpenter family is an historic American family since 1638 that helped settle the town of Rehoboth, Massachusetts in 1644.

The first immigrant and founder of this line was William Carpenter (generation 1) (b. c1575 in England), his namesake son, William Carpenter (Gen. 2) (c1605 in England -1658/9 Rehoboth, Bristol, MA), and the son's wife and children (then numbering four) arrived on the Bevis from Southampton, England, in 1638. Nothing more is known of the father, William, in Massachusetts and he is presumed to have perished either in passage, shortly after arriving in the new world or, less likely he returned to England. William Carpenter (Gen. 2) is buried in the Newman Congregational Church Cemetery with a simple field stone marked with a "W. C.".

William Carpenter, (Gen. 2) first appears in New England records in 1640, as a resident of Weymouth, Massachusetts. He was among the founders (at Weymouth in late 1643) of the Plymouth Colony town of Rehoboth (settled 1644). His son, William (Gen. 3) Carpenter (b. 1631 in England - 1702/3 Rehoboth, Bristol, MA), was for many years Rehoboth town clerk, by virtue of which his name—not that of his father—appears with some frequency in Plymouth Colony records, in association with a number of local vital-records lists that he certified and forwarded to colony authorities. The name William Carpenter appears in copious Plymouth Colony records and in the writings of John Winthrop and in other public records over the generations.

English Ancestry
These Carpenters previously lived in Shalbourne, an English parish near Hungerford that straddled the boundary between Wiltshire and Berkshire. The Rehoboth Carpenters' English origins were obscure until the discovery of Bishops' Transcripts of Shalbourne parish records containing marriage, baptismal, and burial records pertaining to them. Among these records is that of William (Senior) Carpenter's marriage in 1625 to Abigail Briant of Shalbourne. A search of Westcourt Manor tenants' records reveals William Carpenter (Gen. 1) as a copyholder at Westcourt Manor in Shalbourne from 1608 to late 1637.

Immigrant Family
William Carpenter (Gen. 1) born about 1575 in England. He died after 2 May 1638 (Bevis passenger list) and certainly before 1644 when his son, William settled in Rehoboth. He was of Newtown, Shalbourne Parish, Wiltshire, England, by 1608, when he became a copyholder (semipermanent leaseholder) at Westcourt Manor (Westcourt Recs 7). Shalbourne, completely in Wiltshire since 1895, previously it straddled the line separating Wiltshire and Berkshire, with Westcourt comprising the Wiltshire part of the parish (Shalbourne Map); the Hampshire border was/is about four miles away. It is likely that William was born in one of these three counties. William's renewal of his Westcourt tenancy on 22 June 1614 gives his age as 40 (Westcourt Recs 7). The passenger list of the Bevis, the ship on which he left England, is dated 2 May 1638 and states William's age as 62 leading to an estimate of about 1575 for his birth.

His son William Carpenter (Gen. 2) was born about 1605 in or of Wiltshire, England. He died 7 Feburary 1658/1659 in Rehoboth, Bristol, MA. He married Abigail Briant, daughter of John & Alice, on 28 April 1625 in Shalbourne Parish, Berkshire, now in, Wiltshire, England. Their children:


 * John Carpenter - Christened 8 Oct.1626 in Shalborne Parish - Bevis passenger
 * Abigail Carpenter - Chr. 31 May 1629 in Shalborne Parish - Bevis passenger
 * William Carpenter (Gen. 3) - Chr. 22 Nov. 1631 in Shalborne Parish - Bevis Passenger
 * Joseph Carpenter - Chr. 6 Apr. 1634 in Shalborne Parish - Bevis Passenger
 * Samuel Carpenter - Chr. 1 Mar 1636/1637 d. 20 Apr 1637 both in Shalbourne Parish.
 * Samuel Carpenter - b. abt. 1638 of, Weymouth, Norfolk, MA - his mother was probably pregnant on the Bevis
 * Hannah Carpenter - b. 3 Apr. 1640 Weymouth, Norfolk, MA
 * Abiah Carpenter - b. 9 Apr. 1643 of, Weymouth, Norfolk, MA

Notable Carpenters of the Rehoboth Carpenter Family
Many Rehoboth Carpenter family descendants in America have played their part in every aspect of American history, including the ancestry of at least two U.S. presidents - George H. W. Bush, 41st President of the United States (1989–1993) and father of George Walker Bush George W. Bush, 43rd President.


 * Among the many Rehoboth Carpenter descendants who fought in the American Revolution was Captain Benajah Carpenter, a founding member of the United States Army Field Artillery Corps under Henry Knox.
 * Another distinguished product of this family was George Rice Carpenter (1863–1909), born in Labrador and a graduate of Harvard in 1886. He taught at Harvard from 1888 to 1890 and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1890 to 1893. In 1893 he became a professor of English rhetoric at Columbia University and authored a long list of textbooks on literature and 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 memoir of his stay.
 * Project Mercury astronaut and argonaut M. Scott Carpenter (b. May 1,1925) descends from Joseph Carpenter, the fourth son of William Carpenter (Gen. 2).
 * Early U.S. Naval Aviator Donald Marshall Carpenter of whom the USS Carpenter DD 825 was named for. He descends from William Carpenter, a son of William Carpenter (Gen. 2).

Church
There is no record to confirm it, but it is said that certain Rehoboth Carpenters were among the founders of the Rehoboth (Newman) Congregational Church, located in present-day Rumford, Rhode Island (site of the original Rehoboth settlement). This much we know: William (Gen. 2) Carpenter's admission as a Massachusetts Bay Colony freeman from Weymouth in 1640 required church membership. The minister at Weymouth was Rev. Samuel Newman, most of whose congregation accompanied him to Rehoboth, where he was also the minister. William (Gen. 2) Carpenter was one of Rehoboth's fifty-eight original proprietors and is buried in Old Rehoboth (Newman Church) Cemetery. (While records of the time provide no direct evidence as to the religious affiliation of William (Gen. 2) Carpenter of Rehoboth, he was certainly not a Baptist, even though other Carpenters in New England were. In this regard, he is sometimes confused with William_Carpenter_(Rhode_Island) of Providence and others.

End - Compromise version 20 April 2009
GIVE ME INPUT. IS THIS MORE ACCEPTABLE TO ALL? Jrcrin001 (talk) 22:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Survey
- Regarding Compromise Article dated 20 April 2009 - Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~ Please do not remove this survey until complete.


 * Support Jrcrin001 (talk) 23:36, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Support talk is important. Enfermero (talk) 07:16, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Support -- Talk is key to establishing accuracy. Cohee (talk) 07:58, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Support -- the compromise version adds documentation, organization, and clarity. What a long, strange trip it has been! 14:03, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Support -- The compromise version seems fairer and has a better wiki format. 75.162.132.144 (talk) 18:43, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Other than user Iwanafish who refuses to discuss, communicate or vote, it appears the compromise version is acceptable. No doubt it will need to be tweaked here and there by better wiki editors. I have posted the compromise article on 12 May 2009. John R. Carpenter Jrcrin001 (talk) 07:07, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Survey area above
Iwannafish uses 160.244.140.202 as an alias to avoid detection by Wikipedia editor sanctions. He is watching the article because he recently removed the Bevis passenger list picture that shows William Carpenter as "clutter." No comment or discussion given. Jrcrin001 (talk) 06:32, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Disputed
The current (25 April 2009) version of this article is laced with errors and speculative claims for which editor Iwanafish (sock-puppet username 160.244.140.202) is primarily responsible. While refusing to correct his mistakes and remove his wild assertions, he has repeatedly and without discussion deleted the revisions of others. Iwanafish’s poor scholarship and incivility have necessitated the following critique. It is hoped that uninitiated readers (including editors) will gain sufficient factual knowledge from the corrective material below to reject the version in question on the basis of its erroneous and misleading content.

“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.”


 * --Savage (1:337–38) makes several errors in his accounts of these two William Carpenters; it is a poor source to cite. (Though impressive to the uninitiated researcher, Amos B. Carpenter, A Genealogical History of the Rehoboth Branch of the Carpenter Family in America [Amherst, Mass., 1898], which Iwanafish lists in the Reference section, should also be read with great caution.) For the most authoritative and up-to-date information about these men and other early Carpenters of Rehoboth, Massachusetts, and of Providence, Rhode Island, click here.

“The son William Carpenter Jr. appears in copious Plymouth Colony records and in the writings of John Winthrop.”


 * --So-called William Jr. (William2 of Rehoboth) is mentioned in only seven Plymouth Colony records (see Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, ed. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff and David Pulsifer, 12 vols. in 10 [Boston, 1855–1861], 2:84, 85, 102, 147, 3:48–50, 99 [hereafter cited as PCR]). His son William3 Carpenter (1631–1702/3) was for many years Rehoboth town clerk and also held other civic offices; by virtue of this, he—not his father—appears frequently in Plymouth Colony records (see PCR, 4:38, 5:6–278 passim, 6:8–264 passim, 7:259, 260, 8:54–209 passim). William2 Carpenter’s only appearance in John Winthrop’s published correspondence is in an incidental 1640 reference to “the house of one Carpenter in Weymouth” (see Winthrop Papers 1498–1654, 6 vols., various editors [Boston, 1925–1992], 5:177–78). Winthrop’s journal contains no mention of Carpenter whatsoever (see History of New England, ed. James Savage, 2 vols. in 1 (New York, 1825).

“He was among the founders of the new Rehoboth Colony in 1645.”


 * --Rehoboth (never a colony, of course) was founded as Seacunk in late 1643 (meetings held at Weymouth); settled in 1644; and received its present name in 1645, when the town was incorporated (Rehoboth Town Meetings [and Vital Records], 1644–1673 [FHL film #562,558 (uncatalogued), item 4], 1:27, [29?], 31 [hereafter cited as RTM]; Leonard Bliss Jr., The History of Rehoboth, Bristol County, Massachusetts [Boston, 1836] 24–25, 31, 55 [hereafter cited as Bliss, History of Rehoboth). The earliest Rehoboth record naming William Carpenter is dated 10 1st month [March] 1644, when he was among fifty-eight original Rehoboth proprietors who drew lots for the first division “in the Neck” (RTM, 1:6; Rehoboth Proprietors’ Records, vols. 4A–5 [FHL film #550,005], 4A:5). The assignment of home-lots, of which no record survives, had presumably already occurred.

“Plymouth Colony records show him as a sympathizer of the newly emerging Baptist movement in America.”


 * --A single record (when considered with two others) suggests that William2 Carpenter might have attended a few Baptist meetings in 1649 (PCR, 2:147 [see also 156, 162]). He was not, however, among those Rehoboth inhabitants, including Baptist leader Obadiah Holmes, who were indicted at the General Court session of October 1650 for unauthorized worship at private homes (PCR, 2:162; Bliss, History of Rehoboth, 205–6). The Carpenters had come to Rehoboth from Weymouth, in Massachusetts Bay Colony, with Congregationalist minister Samuel Newman and the bulk of his congregation (George Walter Chamberlain, History of Weymouth, Massachusetts, 4 vols. (Boston, 1923), 1:81, 197–98; Bliss, History of Rehoboth, 24, 55). In 1640, while living at Weymouth, William2 Carpenter was admitted a freeman (The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 3[1849]:187, Weymouth cluster [hereafter cited as NEHGR]). An important prerequisite of freemanship in Massachusetts Bay Colony was membership in a Puritan (i.e., Congregational) church (see, for example, James Truslow Adams, The Founding of New England [Boston, 1921], 162, 383–84). William2's burial in the churchyard of the First Congregational (Newman) Church of Rehoboth further confirms his denominational affiliation (see Richard LeBaron Bowen, Early Rehoboth: Documented Historical Studies of Families and Events in This Plymouth Colony Township, 4 vols. [Rehoboth, Mass., 1945–1950], 4:32, 34–35). (It is often said that William1 Carpenter of Providence [with whom William2 of Rehoboth is sometimes confused] was among the founders of the Baptist church there. But his beliefs [apparently unorthodox even for a Baptist] were impugned by Roger Williams [the leading Baptist at Providence] in 1655. In a letter to the Massachusetts Bay General Court, Williams describes Carpenter as “very far allso in religion from you, if you knew all” [see The Correspondence of Roger Williams, Volume II, 1654–1682, ed. Glenn W. LaFantasie (Providence, R.I., 1988), 444].)

“The portrait of him in Winthrop's writings, as well as the Plymouth Colony records, present a man of intense religious conviction as well as compassion.”


 * --This is manufactured from whole cloth. Neither Plymouth Colony records nor Winthrop's writings reveal any such attributes. As above, the Winthrop Papers mention William Carpenter only once, in passing; Winthrop’s journal fails altogether to include him; and one Plymouth Colony record hints at a brief Baptist flirtation. There is no indication of the depth of his religious conviction or compassion.

“The English origins were obscure for this family until the discovery of parish records in Bishops' transcripts.”


 * --That is, Bishops' transcripts of Shalbourne parish records (see Eugene Cole Zubrinsky, "The Family of William2 Carpenter of Rehoboth, Massachusetts, With the English Origin of the Rehoboth Carpenters,” The American Genealogist 70 [1995]:193–204, at 194–95 [hereafter cited as TAG]).

“The two William Carpenters had resided in the Berkshire village of Shalbourne, just outside Hungerford.”


 * --No, they were copyholders (semi-permanent leaseholders) in Newtown, a village in the Wiltshire part of Shalbourne parish, which straddled the line separating Wiltshire and Berkshire (Survey of Shalbourne Westcourt [c1610–1639/40], Savernake Estate Collection, ref. 9/24/460, p. 7, Wiltshire and Swindon Archives, Chippenham, England [hereafter cited as Survey of Shalbourne Westcourt]; map of Shalbourne Parish'').

“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.”


 * --If Thomas Carpenter of Hungerford (not adjacent to Shalbourne but 3–4 miles distant) died childless in 1625, what relevance (of an immediate nature, at least) does he have to the Carpenters of Shalbourne and Rehoboth? Even if the description of the Hungerford couple is taken at face value (without citations or complete data), there is no evidence of a connection between them and the Shalbourne/Rehoboth family. More likely than a close connection between Thomas Carpenter of Hungerford and the Alice Carpenter buried at Shalbourne on 25 January 1637[/8] is that she had been the wife of William1 of Shalbourne; this is not confirmed, however (see TAG 70:194–95).

“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.”


 * --This vague claim of conformity of Culham Carpenter activities to Shalbourne Carpenter records is belied by contrasting activities, abilities, and social stations (see below) and by conflicting chronology: On 22 November 1636, William Carpenter of Culham was appointed to administer the estate of his son Thomas of London, whose will failed to name an executor (John Matthews and George F. Matthews, Abstracts of Probate Acts in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1635–1639 [London, 1903], 83 [digital image online at http://books.google.com]). By this time, William1 Carpenter and his son, the eventual William2 of Rehoboth, had been living at Shalbourne for twenty-eight years!

“The Carpenters had inhabited Culham as a prosperous yeoman family from 1533 with a Thomas Carpenter of Culham and tenant of the Abbey of Abingdon. Carpenter tenants of the abbey extend back to the 1400s elsewhere in Berkshire.


 * --Relevance? (But remember “yeoman.”)

“William Carpenter Sr. served as assessor of fines in the Culham Manor Court. Many pages of Latin records bearing his name are now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.”


 * --There is absolutely no evidence to justify the identification of William Carpenter Sr. (i.e., William1 of Shalbourne) with someone of the same, common name at Culham. In fact, the aforementioned 1636 probate record and information presented below make it clear that they were different men. (Iwanafish has retreated from his earlier claims in this article that William Sr. was a “scribe” at Culham and that the Latin records [which now are said merely to bear the elder Carpenter’s name] “are from his hand.”) Iwanafish is alone in making these claims, and he presents them only in this article (no respectable genealogical publication would allow them into print). They consequently violate Wikipedia’s “no original research” policy. Far from being a highly literate yeoman (land-owning farmer) who sat on a manorial court at Culham (as per Iwanafish), William1 Carpenter of Shalbourne (35 miles distant) was an illiterate carpenter and husbandman (Shalbourne Vicarage Glebe Terrier, ref. D/5/10/2/8, Wiltshire and Swindon Archives [as Shalbourne church warden, Carpenter signed 1628 record by mark]; NEHGR 14:336 [Bevis passenger list calls him carpenter]; Survey of Shalbourne Westcourt, 7 [he was a tenant farmer]).

“William Carpenter Sr. educated his eldest son Robert at Oxford for the church.”


 * --While it is possible that a William Carpenter of Culham educated a son Robert at Oxford (we have only Iwanafish’s assertion), it has nothing to do with the Carpenters of Shalbourne and Rehoboth. That the name of the eventual William2 Carpenter of Rehoboth appears with that of his father in the record of their Newtown copyhold indicates that the former--in keeping with the English common law of primogeniture--was the eldest (actually, the only known) son of William1 of Shalbourne (Survey of Shalbourne Westcourt, 7). A man of William1's modest station, moreover (see above), was in no position to send a son to Oxford. (William2 of Rehoboth was well educated but does not appear in Oxford or Cambridge matriculation records; he was probably tutored locally by a clergyman.)

“Many of what were perhaps Robert's books made their way to Massachusetts in the possession of Carpenter's son William Carpenter Jr. (b. 1605).”


 * --Especially in light of some of the foregoing evidence, this is almost certainly wrong--even with the qualifying “perhaps.” This is another speculative claim made only by Iwanafish and only in this article. The volumes identified in William2's will are of unknown origin(s).

“In nearby Reading a Thomas Carpenter was mayor and has a place in the economic history of England.”


 * --Relevance?

In the References section (there isn’t a single footnote), Iwanafish cites two sources: Amos B. Carpenter, A Genealogical History of the Rehoboth Branch of the Carpenter Family in America (Amherst, Mass., 1898), and Richard LeBaron Bowen, Early Rehoboth, Documented Historical Studies of Families and Events in This Plymouth Colony Township, 4 vols. (Rehoboth, Mass., 1945–1950). The former is highly unreliable, and little or nothing from the latter (certainly nothing incorporated accurately) appears in this article. Iwanafish (alias 160.244.140.202) is aware of authoritative journal articles and sketches pertaining to the early Carpenters of Rehoboth, yet he stubbornly persists in trading intellectual honesty for ego aggrandizement.

Although another editor's "compromise" version may soon replace that critiqued above, it is likely that Iwanafish will reverse it in favor of the latter. Readers should not be fooled by date changes or minor, "drive by" revisions of style, format, organization, etc. (the compromise version, by contrast, omits most of the offending passages). If the article continues to include statements such as those quoted above, readers will presumably know to give them no credence. GeneZub (talk) 23:29, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Vandalisim warning
Iwanafish aka 160.244.140.202 This is a warning for your continuing disruptive edits and deliberate vandalisim. Caution: do not violate Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy by inserting commentary or your personal analysis into an article, as you have done repeatedly with Rehoboth Carpenter family,Culham and now John Carpenter (bishop).

You refuse to discuss, talk or converse. Your actions indicate you are deliberately causing harm to these articles for no apparent reason. It is childish, unprofessional and wrong. You need to stop. Maybe we need to contact your employer in Japan ...

John R. Carpenter Jrcrin001 (talk) 23:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Compromise Article Posted
Based on the survey above with the assistance on many, the compromise artice has been posted. See notes above. The tags that were posted were removed pending review. The tags were: Disputed|date=May 2009}} Original research|date=May 2009}} NPOV|date=May 2009}} Refimprove|date=April 2009}} No footnotes|date=April 2009}} It appears that all of these issues were resolved with the compromise version. John R. Carpenter Jrcrin001 (talk) 07:10, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

My recent clean up
I just cleaned up some non-standard formatting and layout as follows:


 * 1) moved first image to the right, left thumbnails are non-standard in article lead paras
 * 2) removed the non-standard TOC placement -- the is no reason for it to be anywhere other than the usual place
 * 3) created "See also" section for other wikipedia pages to separate from "External links", per WP:MOS
 * 4) removed unnecessary cats and default sort - years of birth and death and default sort are not appropriate here
 * 5) formatted heading case per MOS

– ukexpat (talk) 14:18, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Expert Help request
Tag removed - it was hiding other discussion. Jrcrin001 (talk) 08:42, 16 May 2009 (UTC) Jrcrin001 (talk) 03:03, 25 May 2009 (UTC)


 * It appears that the "experts" on the Carpenter family early history helped put the facts together for this article. The rest appears to be cleanup here and there. Jrcrin001 (talk) 23:12, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Article needs attention
Article could use help if not complete rewrite (actually, talk page could use help to, a first for me). I scratched the surface if that. Thanks, --Tom (talk) 00:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Archieve time?
Time to archive the above? Jrcrin001 (talk) 19:20, 20 July 2009 (UTC)