William Carpenter (abt. 1653 - abt. 1676)

Born about 1653 in Pawtuxet, Rhode Island

Ancestors

Died about 27 Jan 1676 at about age 23 in Pawtuxet, Rhode Island

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Rick Williams [send private message]

Biography

William Carpenter was born probably about 1653. He was the youngest child of William Carpenter (abt.1610-1685) and Elizabeth (Arnold) Carpenter (1611-aft.1679). It has been reported that he was killed in the Indian attack on his father’s house in Pawtuxet (Providence) on 27 Jan 1676. He was unmarried.^[1]

William was probably born by 2 Sept. 1653 (his father 1st calls himself Wm. Sr. on 2 Sept. 1674 so in 1674 William Jr would have been of age)^[2] Eugene Zubrinsky dates William Jr's death based on his last mention in the Providence town land records. So William died probably at Pawtuxet (Providence) between 27 April 1676 (last rec. of father as Wm. Sr.) and 10 February 1679/80 (father’s will calls him deceased)^[2] William was unmarried. Circumstantial evidence implies that William was the youngest of William Sr's and Elizabeth children. On 4 December 1671, four of William Sr's sons witnessed the deed by which William Sr gave his Amesbury home to his sister, Frideswide (Providence Town Record 5:323–25). The sequence in which they signed the instrument—Timothy, Silas, Benjamin, and William “Junr:”—reflects their birth order according to custom. (William Jr. was then presumably a minor but old enough to witness a document, for which the legal minimum age was 14.)^[2]

Here is Eugene Zubrinsky's argument and evidence that William Jr did not die in the Indian attack and that he died unmarried still living with his Father: "Quoting from Hubbard’s Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New England (1677) and Austin’s Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island (1887), D. H. Carpenter claims that on 27 January 1675/6, during an Indian attack upon William1 Carpenter’s house, his namesake son was killed (see Carpenter [1901] 18–19, 320). Hubbard’s narrative says that “[t]wo that belonged to the said [Mr.] Carpenter were wounded, and one of the Enemies slain” (Hubbard 1:164). Austin, drawing from Hubbard and also from an unattributed account published in 1676—whose only mention of casualties is the death of “a Negro Servant” of “young Mr. [Toleration] Harris”—distorts both by relating that “two of [William Carpenter’s] household were killed” (see Chronicle 58; Hubbard 58n259; HP 162n; Austin 37; see also Carpenter [1901] 18). The eminent antiquarian Samuel Gardner Drake regarded the anonymous version, which he felt was written from personal knowledge, as more reliable than Hubbard’s (see Hubbard 58n260). The most personally knowledgeable source, however, is William Harris, who wrote the following to Sir Joseph Williamson on 12 Aug. 1676: “I haue lost a deer son : a dillegent engenious Just man : temperate in all things, whom ye Indeans lay in waite for by ye way syd & killd him, and a negro man, and burnt our houses . . . ” (HP 162–63). A record of William Carpenter’s election as Providence deputy to the Rhode Island General Assembly, dated 27 April 1676, refers to him as “Senr” (PrTR 8:11). This implies that, three months after the aforementioned Indian attack, William Jr. was still living. He had died by 10 Feb. 1679/80, the date of his father’s will, which refers to “my son William deceased” (PrTR 6:143, 145). William is not named on any of the Providence tax lists (the only ones recorded between 1650 and 1680 are dated in 1671 and 1679) or lists of the township’s householders who swore allegiance (the last is dated in late May 1671). This, together with the lack of a probate record for him or of any evidence that he married, suggests that he lived his entire life in his father’s household."^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ History and genealogy of the Carpenter family in America, from the settlement at Providence, R.I., 1637-1901 by Carpenter, Daniel Hoogland, Jamaica, N.Y. Marion Press, 1901, p. 320 see at archive.org
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} Eugene Cole Zubrinsky, FASG, Ojai, California, 2008 Last revised 9 December 2010. William1 Carpenter of Providence, Rhode Island Prepared for Carpenters’ Encyclopedia of Carpenters 2008. From Carpenter Sketches, Carpenter Cousins. http://www.carpentercousins.com/Wm1_Providence.pdf

• Eugene Cole Zubrinsky, "William1 Carpenter of Providence, Rhode Island" (2008; rev. 9 Dec. 2010), See online