William Carpenter (abt. 1575 - aft. 1640)

Born about 1575 in Wiltshire, Berkshire, or Hampshire, England

Husband of Alice (Unknown) Carpenter — married before 1605 in Wiltshire, Berkshire, or Hampshire, England [uncertain]

Descendants

Died after 1640 after about age 65 in Weymouth, Massachusetts Bay Colony [uncertain]

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Puritan Great Migration Project WikiTree [send private message]

William Carpenter migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640). (See The Directory, by R. C. Anderson, p. 57) Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: pgm

Disputed Spouse

Mary Batt was previously attached as an additional spouse, without source. That claim appears to confuse this William Carpenter with a different man of the same name. See Research Notes.

Biography

William Carpenter represents the earliest immigrant generation for this family.^[1] He is typically referred to as William Carpenter of Shalbourne and, more recently, of Weymouth to distinguish him from his son, William Carpenter (abt.1605-1658) of Rehoboth, and from William1 Carpenter of Providence. Based on ages given in certain records (see Birth, below), he was born about 1575. He was from the parish of Shalbourne, on the Wiltshire/Berkshire border and very near that of Hampshire. The Bevis passenger list shows him and his son, William2, as being of "Horwell" (i.e., Wherwell, Hampshire, a center of religious dissent), presumably where the family had lingered only long enough for each man to obtain from sympathetic authorities the certificate of conformity necessary for the family to leave England. William1's baptismal record has not been found; he was likely born in Wiltshire, Berkshire, or Hampshire.

His parents and ancestry are not known. A couple of possibilities exist: a William Carpenter, son of Henry Carpenter, was baptized about thirty miles north of Shalbourne in the parish of Great Coxwell, Berkshire (now in Oxfordshire), on 5 May 1576. About the same distance south-southwest of Shalbourne in Salisbury, Wiltshire, a William Carpenter, probable son of Thomas Carpenter, was baptized in the parish church of St. Thomas the Martyr on 1 May 1571. (This William has been disconnected from Robert Carpenter of Marden, Wiltshire, among whose legatees was a son William, and his wife Eleanor Reade.) Evidence that either of these baptisms belong to the eventual William1 Carpenter of Shalbourne and Weymouth has not been found.

William1 became a copyholder on Westcourt Manor, Shalbourne, in 1608. The renewal of his copyhold, dated 22 June 1614, also named his son, the eventual William2 of Rehoboth. The latter man married Abigail Briant in Shalbourne and had five children baptized there. The names and vital-event dates in Shalbourne church records match known facts of the family in Massachusetts, thereby confirming that the Shalbourne family became the Carpenters of Weymouth and Rehoboth.

An Alice Carpenter was buried in Shalbourne on 25 January 1637[/8]. This was a little over three months before William Carpenter sailed on the Bevis with his son and the latter's family but with no wife of his own. While it is tempting to conclude that Alice had been his wife, there is nothing of substance to support this (see Research Notes, Disputed Spouse, below)..

Not until after William had departed Southampton on the Bevis were the ship's passengers formally recorded. Dated 2 May 1638, when they had been "some Days gone to sea," the passenger list named the Carpenter party as consisting of William Carpenter and William Carpenter Jun., both of "Horwell," carpenters, 62 and 33, respectively; Abigail Carpenter, 32; four children (unnamed) 10 and under; and Tho[mas] Banshott, servant, 14.^[2]

Birth

Born about 1575 (see records below). In that Shalbourne then straddled the Wiltshire–Berkshire line and was/is only four miles from that of Hampshire, it is likely that William1 was born in one of these counties.

Aged 40 in Westcourt Manor record of copyhold renewal dated 22 June 1614.

Aged 62 on the Bevis passenger list, dated 2 May 1638.

Death

Died after late 1640 or early 1640/1, perhaps in Weymouth.

Until March 2023, the latest known record of William was the aforementioned Bevis passenger list. His son, William, was admitted a Massachusetts Bay Colony freeman from Weymouth on 13 May 1640 without his father being mentioned, suggesting to some that the elder William may have died before then. However, "Willim" Carpenter—in a hand easily distinguished from that of his namesake son—signed as one of the appraisers of the estate inventory of Henry Butterworth of Weymouth, taken not long before 28 January 1640/1.^[3]

Research Notes

Disputed Origins

The English origin of William Carpenter was published in The American Genealogist in 1995. Research by the same author, Eugene Cole Zubrinsky FASG, has continued up until the present time on behalf of the Carpenter Cousins Project, John R. Carpenter administrator. All work prior to 1995 should be considered out-of-date and suspect. In particular, the Carpenter Memorial, published in 1898 (see "See Also" section), should be used with great caution, as it contains numerous errors and incorrect guesses as to the origins of the Rehoboth Carpenters. The claim that William1 Carpenter was from London, for example, is certainly incorrect.

Disputed Spouse

Mary Batt was previously attached as an additional spouse, without source. Despite her proper dismissal, uncertainty continues to surround the matter of William1's wife. The following discussion of this issue—as with virtually the entirety of this page's content—is taken from Eugene Cole Zubrinsky, "William Carpenter of Newtown, Shalbourne, Wiltshire, and Weymouth, Massachusetts" (Ojai, Calif., 2008; rev. 28 March 2023), online at https://www.carpentercousins.com/Wm1_Shalbourne.pdf.

William1’s having emigrated only three months after the death of Alice Carpenter, who was buried in Shalbourne on 25 January 1637[/8], might be interpreted to suggest that she had been his wife (though not necessarily William2’s mother); it is possible, of course, that she was an unmarried sister or daughter (TAG 70:194–95).

A William Carpenter married Alice Swithen in St. Denys Church, parish of Warminster, Wiltshire, 14 January 160[4/]5 (WarPaR [image 111]). “Luis” [Louise?] (not Lillis, as indexed at familysearch.org) Carpenter, daughter of William Carpenter, was baptized at Warminster St. Denys 26 December 1607 and was buried there 11 August 1609 (WarPaR [images 59, 190]). By the latter date, William1 had been in Shalbourne for more than a year (see RESIDENCES section, below). It is possible that the child had been returned from Shalbourne for burial, but available records fail to support such a hypothesis.

Two other Warminster marriages in which the groom was named William Carpenter preceded the aforementioned one: on 2 December 1596 William Carpenter married Elinor Hunt, whose burial (as “Edeth” Carpenter, repeating the forename of the preceding entry) almost certainly occurred on 22 September 1597 (WarPaR [images 108, 180]); and on 11 July 1603 William Carpenter married Jane [Edwards] (WarPaR [image 110]). Elizabeth, daughter of William (and presumably Jane) Carpenter, was baptized in Warminster 26 October 1604 and probably married Richard Whittaker there 9 April 1632 (WarPaR [images 56, 118]). The only William Carpenter whose Warminster baptismal date raises the possibility that he married either or both Jane Edwards and Alice Swithen (but not Elinor Hunt) received the sacrament on 25 November 1582 as the son of Hugh Carpenter (WarPaR [image 31]). While the man of that name buried in Warminster 19 December 1616 might well have been the husband of Alice (Swithen), no ancillary records are found to verify it (see WarPaR [image 195]). (Baptized in Warminster 19 December 1562, William Carpenter “of the Laynes,” hamlet of Bugley, was buried in Warminster 27 March 1625; on 29 January 1581[/2] he had married there Dorothie Batt, who survived him [WarPaR (images 11, 103, 202); CCS Probate, admin. bond].) No Warminster baptismal record of a William Carpenter is any nearer to 1575 (William1’s calculated birth year) than that of 1582, above.

The foregoing facts neither confirm nor refute that Alice Swithen was the wife of William1 of Shalbourne, but they tend toward the latter. It should be remembered that his relationship to the Alice Carpenter buried there is uncertain. But even if we accept for argument’s sake that she was his wife, the only evidence pointing toward her having been the former Alice Swithen is matching, popular forenames; relative proximity of Shalbourne and Warminster (36–40 miles); and a marriage date compatible with the approximate birth year (1605) of William1 Carpenter’s only known child (see CHILDREN section, below). This falls far short of the Genealogical Proof Standard (see BCG).

A William Carpenter married at St. Thomas the Martyr, Salisbury, Wiltshire, 18 April 1605, Mary Bath (not Batt) (WiltPaR 5:22). Christopher Batt, a tanner of [New] Sarum (i.e., Salisbury), Wiltshire, was one of the Carpenters’ fellow passengers on the Bevis. Records of the Batt family of Salisbury indicate that he and a Mary Batt of appropriate age (baptized at St. Thomas 7 Aug. 1584, daughter of Richard and Agnes (Danyell) Batt) “would be no more than distant cousins” (NEHGR 14:336; Martin, citing NEHGR 51:181–88, 348–57, 52:44–51, 321–22). It seems likely that this William Carpenter had been the infant of that name baptized at St. Thomas on 1 May 1571 (see BIRTH section, above), and that he remained a Salisbury resident. Evidence that Mary Bath was the eventual wife of William1 Carpenter of Shalbourne has not been found.

Sources

Footnotes and citations:

1. ↑ Eugene Cole Zubrinsky, "The Family of William² Carpenter of Rehoboth, Massachusetts: With the English Origin of the Rehoboth Carpenters," American Genealogist 70(1995):193-204.
2. ↑ "Bevis Passenger List," New England Historical and Genealogical Register 14(1860):336–37.
3. ↑ Eugene Cole Zubrinsky, "William Carpenter of Newtown, Shalbourne, Wiltshire, and Weymouth, Massachusetts," (2008; rev. 28 Mar 2023), 2-3, online at Carpenter's Encyclopedia of Carpenters, (https://carpentercousins.com/Wm1_Shalbourne.pdf : accessed 2 Apr 2023).

See also:

• Amos B[ugbee] Carpenter, Carpenter Memorial, formal title A Genealogical History of the Rehoboth Branch [sic] of the Carpenter Family in America (Amherst, Mass., 1898), brings forward from claimed English ancestor John Carpenter, 1303, "with many biographical notes of descendants and allied families" English Ancestry beginning page 1. This volume should be used with extreme caution; it is rife with errors and unsupported assertions.
• Eugene Cole Zubrinsky, "The Family of William² Carpenter of Rehoboth, Massachusetts: With the English Origin of the Rehoboth Carpenters," American Genealogist 70(1995):193–204.
• "Founders of New England: Bevis Passenger List," New England Historical and Genealogical Register 14(1860):336-37 AmericanAncestors.org link.
• Ezra S. Stearns, Genealogical and Family History of the State of New Hampshire 4 vols. (New York, 1908), 2:584.
• England & Wales Christening Records, 1530-1906: Publication: Name: Ancestry.com Operations Inc; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date:2008; Genealogical Society of Utah, British Isles Vital Records Index, 2ndEdition, Salt Lake City, Utah: Intellectual Reserve, copyright 2002

Record for William Carpenter

• U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 Yates Publishing: The Generations Network, Inc. (Provo, UT, USA, The Generations Network, Inc., 2004).
• OneWorldTree: Publication: Name: The Generations Network, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA;

Record for William Carpenter

• Ancestry.com: Title: Public Member Trees: Publication: Name: The Generations Network, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date:2006;
• Heinsohn, Robert Jennings, PhD, SMDPA. The Carpenter Sisters of Leiden (Sail1620.org)) 22 Dec 2004 DOCL Cushman Surname: Dillen