Joseph CARPENTER (1633 – 1675) was Alex’s 10th Great Grandfather, one of 2,048 in this generation of the Shaw line.

[ See  Eugene Cole Zubrinsky’s,  article JOSEPH3 CARPENTER (WILLIAM2–1) OF REHOBOTH AND SWANSEA, MASSACHUSETTS  – Last revised 18 October 2011 – Much of this information is from Gene and his scholarship far exceeds my own.]

Joseph Carpenter was baptized 6 Apr 1634 at Shalbourne, Berkshire, England. His parents were William CARPENTER Jr.and Abigail BRIANT. He was the youngest of four children that accompanied their parents on the Bevis in 1638 to Massachusetts.  He married Margaret SUTTON on 25 Nov 1655 in Rehoboth, Plymouth Colony.  Joseph died 6 May 1675 in  Swansea, Plymouth Colony. He is said to have been buried near the “100-acre cove,” in that part of Swansea now Barrington, Rhode Island, about 10 miles southeast of downtown Providence.

Joseph was buried near Hundred Acre Cove

Margaret Sutton was born about 1634. The 1635 birth year often attributed to her stems from Amos Carpenter’s identification of another woman’s gravestone inscription as hers. Her parents were John SUTTON and Julian ADCOCKE. She came to Massachusetts from Attleborough, Norfolk, England with her parents and sibblings on the Diligent in 1638. Margaret died about 1677 in Swansea, Mass. only about 18 months after her husband.

Children of Joseph and Margaret:

Joseph Carpenter was one of seven founding members of the Swansea Baptist Church. Formed at Rehoboth in the fall of 1666.  The church at Swansea was the fourth Baptist church in America.  It was relocated to neighboring Swansea about a year later, when the latter town was established.

Swansea Baptist Church – 1848 Meeting House

RESIDENCES: Shalbourne; Weymouth (probably 1638); Rehoboth (1644); and Swansea
(by 22 February 1669/70). Amos Carpenter has Joseph removing to Swansea in 1661
or 1662, but the town was not established until fall of 1667, and Joseph was still living at
Rehoboth on 2 April 1669

OCCUPATION: House-carpenter/joiner. Joseph’s estate inventory contains an extensive list of house-carpenter’s tools

EDUCATION: He signed his will, and his estate inventory includes several Bibles and
other books

OFFICES: Rehoboth: coroner’s jury, 1662. Swansea: way warden (surveyor [overseer] of highways), 1671; grand juror (Plymouth Colony Grand Enquest), 1673; appointed to preserve the town’s timber and wood, 1673

WILL/ESTATE: Joseph Carpenter’s will, dated 3 May 1675 (three days before his burial),
mentions sons Joseph (eldest), Benjamin, and John, “my five daughters” (names not
given), “my beloved wife” (executrix), and his brothers William and Samuel Carpenter
(overseers). (William and Samuel probably became guardians of the children.) The will
also acknowledges the impending birth of another child: “if hee be a son; that now my
wife is with child withall; hee shall have his p[or]t[io]n . . .”  The day after the will was written, Joseph’s sixth surviving daughter, Margaret, was born. Only four daughters have been identified.

Joseph’s estate (movable goods only), inventoried on 20 May 1675 and exhibited on 2
November 1676, was valued at £137  10s. 6d.

Widow Margaret’s estate—the inventory was taken less than a year and a half after her
husband’s —amounted to £87 1s. 6d. While only £23 13s. remained after payment of debts, expenses for the children, etc., £38 8s. was nevertheless divided among eight children (a daughter had apparently died) on an unspecified date (probably in 1681 or 1682) Since Margaret died as a young widow, the inventory of her estate gives us a picture of the household items a typical family might have in 1675.

The Inventory of Margaret Carpenter – An Inventory of the estate of Margarett Carpentor wife of Ioseph Carpentor deceased exhibited to the Court held att Plymouth the 2cond of Nouember 1676 on the oath of Willan Carpentor apprised by Mr Nicholas Tanner and Iohn Butterworth this 4th of October 1676.

Impr: her wearing apparrell
Item 4 petticoates 02 05 00
Item 3 wastcoates 01 05 00
Item 4 aprons 00 15 00
Item 2 hatts 00 12 00
Item 1 paire of shooes 1 paire of stockens 1 paire of bodies 00 10 00
Item a yard of Cloth 00 06 00
Item a shift and smale linnine 00 15 00
Item thrid and pins 00 02 00
Item 7 yards and 3 quarters of Cloth 01 00 00
Item 3 yards of Carsey 00 15 00
Item a shift and smale linnine 00 15 00
[items crossed out but value stands]
Item 2 yards and a quarter 00 10 00
Item 26 yards of Cloth att the weauers

Item 1 box locke 01 01 00
item in mony 02 05 00
Item a box with a drawer and a few smale thinges in it 00 15 00
Item an Inkhorn 00 01 00
Item a gun 02 00 00
Item a rapier 00 12 00
Item an old Rapier 00 03 00
Item a belt 00 02 06
Item a Chest & old box 00 09 00
Item a Cradle 00 05 00
Item 4 Chaires 00 08 00
Item 9 pound of woollen yern 01 02 06
a paire of andirons 01 08 00
Item 2 fier shouells and pare of tonggs 00 12 06
Item 2 smoothing Irons 00 05 00
Item 2 pothangers 00 10 00
Item a warming pan 00 05 00
Item a lookeing glasse and Grater 00 02 00
Item a frying pan 00 04 00
Item a spitt 00 05 00
Item 2 paire of shooes 00 02 06
Item 9 trayes 00 05 00
Item a pistoll 00 08 00
Item eleuen trenchers 00 01 06
Item 3 bibles 00 15 00
a Great bible [written in margin] 00 15 00
Item a Psalm book & a Psalter 00 02 06
Item 3 bookes 00 15 00
Item kniues & sissers 00 01 03
Item 2 pond and an half of Flax 00 03 00
Item 8 spoons 00 0[?]
Item a Flaggon 00 18 00
Item a Cupp 00 04 00
Item 6 porrengors 00 10 00
Item 6 platters 02 00 00
Item 4 peeces of pewter 00 07 00
Item 4 pound of Cotton yerne 00 14 00
Item Course yerne for blanketts 01 00 00
Item 6 pound of woole 00 04 00
Item 3 paire of Cards 00 06 00
Item a paire of flocke Cards 00 08 00
Item a Gridiron 00 04 00
Item 2 seiues 00 02 00
Item two brasse lockes 00 02 00
Item 9 [trew?]ell & lines 00 02 00
Item 7 pound of Flax 00 08 00
Item 2 Iron kettles & 2 potts pothookes and skillett 02 08 00
Item a Great brasse kettl 01 15 00
Item a blankett a sheet a bolster and pillow 01 15 00
Item a paire of New blanketts 01 15 00
Item 2 wheeles 00 08 00
Item 3 pailes 1 tubb 00 05 00
Item 3 Glasse bottles 00 03 00
Item 1 Iugge 00 01 06
Item an houre Glasse 00 01 00
Item a Couerlid and blankett 01 15 00
Item 6 dishes a pipkin and a Can 00 03 00
Item a paire of scales 00 02 06
Item a pillian 00 03 00
Item a blankett a Green Rugg & a pillow 01 10 00
Item 2 blanketts 01 00 00
Item 2 bedds and a bolster 01 10 00
Item 1 new Chairre 00 03 00
Item 2 bedsteeds 01 00 00
Item 5 Glasse bottles 00 10 00
a table Cloth* 00 10 00
2 pillowbeer* 00 06 00
5 sheets* 02 10 00
a Green Rugg sad somethings else* 01 10 00
Item 13 hundred of Nailes 00 13 00
Item a kneading trough and a halfe bushell 00 04 00
Item Indian Corn 00 04 00
Item 2 baggs 00 06 00
Itemn old saddle & bridl 00 04 00
Item 2 pound and halfe of Cotton woole 00 01 06
Item Cart wheels yoak Copps 01 10 00
Item a Chain 01 05 00
Item horse Chaines 00 15 00
Item plow Irons & Copps 00 10 00
Item 2 oxen 08 00 00
Item 2 Cowes 06 00 00
Item 2 two yeer olds 04 00 00
Item 2 yeerlings 03 [MS smudged]
Item half a horse 00 10 00
Item Corn on the Ground 01 00 00
Item an hoe and axe 00 04 00
Item halfe a steele trapp 00 16 00
Item a meale trough and bushells & other lumber 00 07 00
Item a sett of harrow teeth 00 12 00
Item a paire of bodyes 00 08 00
Item a debt 05 0[MS torn]

Margaret Sutton (1635-1700) married Joseph Carpenter (1633-1675) son of William and Abigail Bennett Carpenter on 25 May 1655 in Rehoboth, MA. They moved to Swansea, MA about 1661 after the death of Joseph’s father, William. In 1666 Joseph Carpenter became one of the seven founders of the first Baptist Church in Swansea, Massachusetts. The church at Swansea was the fourth Baptist church in America. It was originally formed in the fall of 1666 at Rehoboth and was relocated to Swansea about a year later. Joseph may have actually helped build the church physically since he was by occupation a carpenter/joiner and yeoman (yeoman = farmer). In addition to his church work, Joseph was active in civic affairs. He served on a coroner’s jury in Rehoboth in 1662. In Swansea in 1671 he was a way warden (or overseer of highways). In Plymouth Colony he served as a grand juror in 1673 and was appointed to preserve the town’s timber and wood. Joseph was probably fairly well educated for the time because he signed his will rather than using a mark, and several books are mentioned in his estate inventory. Joseph and Margaret had nine children: Joseph, Jr., Abigail, Benjamin, Esther, Martha, John, Hannah, Solomon, and Margaret. Some sources say that after Joseph’s death in 1675, Margaret Sutton Carpenter moved to East Providence, RI. However, she herself died shortly after Joseph because she presented her husband’s inventory for probate on 21 March 1675, and her own inventory was presented on 4 Oct 1676, so she, too is probably buried in Rehoboth. (Info about the widowhood of Margaret in Providence and her sister-in-law Elizabeth in Rye, NY, may actually be about one of the other Sutton families.)

Project Mercury astronaut and argonaut M. Scott Carpenter (b. May 1, 1925) descends from Joseph Carpenter, the fourth son of William Carpenter (Gen. 2).

Children

1. Joseph Carpenter

Joseph’s wife Mary Tillinghast was born 1 Oct 1659. Her parents were Pardon Tillinghast (1622 – 1718) and Sarah Butterworth (1623 – 1661) Mary died 1 Mar 1718.   She was buried in  Kickemuit Cemetery, Swansea (that part now Warren, R.I.)  Some sources say her maiden name was Mason.

Find A Grave Memorial# 21736519 says Joseph is on record as having married a “Mrs. Mary Carpenter” on 23 Feb 1681. This type of reference usually implies marriage to a widow. The only other Carpenter interred in this cemetery is Mary Tillinghast Carpenter, wife of Benjamin Carpenter. It is possible that she is also 2nd wife to Joseph. To add to the confusion, the death date given in most records for Benjamin Carpenter is the same as Mary. If Mary Tillinghast is the wife of Joseph, Benjamin must have died before 1681. The Children listed above are those of Joseph and “Mrs. Mary Carpenter”. Mary Tillinghast Carpenter’s children with Benjamin are listed with her memorial. .

Mary Carpenter Headstone — Kickemuit Cemetery Warren Bristol County Rhode Island

Corrections (to Carpenter [1898] 73–74, 122) concerning Joseph4’s son Joseph5, b. Swansea 20 June 1688: Rather than declaring marriage intentions at Bristol, Mass. (now in R.I.), on 16 Feb 1723, he married there (Rev. John Usher presiding) on 16 Feb 1723/24, Abigail Newton, sister of John Newton of Bristol. Joseph5 did not die in Surinam on 4 Feb 1745 but drowned with three others in passage from Hog Island to Bristol on 21 Dec  1728, when their canoe “sunk under them.” His widow, Abigail—not his sister of that name, who died at Swansea 1 Feb  1683 (not 1783)—married second, at Bristol on 29 (int. 16) February 1735/36, Obadiah Papill(i)on. Abigail Papillon, “widow, of Rehoboth,” where she had moved between 1763 and 1769, was buried at Providence, R.I., 16 February 1776. Joseph5 and Abigail (Newton) Carpenter had two (not three) children: 1. Sarah6, b. Bristol 3 Feb. 1724/25, d. probably Bristol 22 Feb. 174[7/]8; 2. Joseph, b. Bristol  Oct. 1726, d. Surinam (rec. Bristol) 4  Feb 1745, aged 19

Joseph Carpenter 1718 Headstone — Kickemuit Cemetery Warren, Bristol, Rhode Island,

2. Benjamin Carpenter

Benjamin’s first wife Renew Weeks was born 12 Aug 1660 Dorchester, Mass. Her parents were  William Weeks   and  Elizabeth Weeks Mather. Renew died 29 Jul 1703 Swansea, Mass and is buried in Knockum Hill Cemetery. There were 100 graves here with Renew being the oldest marked grave still in existence.  The entrance is at telephone pole #33 on Warren Avenue in Swansea, MA. You go down a grass road (blocked off so you have to walk) 3000′. It overlooks 100 Acre Cove.

Renew Weeks Carpenter Headstone — Knockum Hill Cemetery Barrington, Bristol, Rhode Island

Benjamin;’s second wife Martha Bliss was born Apr 1663 in Rehoboth.  Her parents were Jonathan Bliss and Rachel Puffer (not Miriam Harmon/ Wilmarth). She was the widow of Nathaniel Toogood.  Martha died  22 Mar 1735, in Rehoboth.

4. Esther Carpenter

Esther’s husband Samuel Brentnall was born 2 Dec 1665 in Boston.  His parents were Thomas Brentnall and Esther [__?__] of Boston, Norton, and Taunton, Mass.  After Esther died, he married Elizabeth Candage (Widow of Jonathan Blake) 23 May 1734 Wrentham, Mass.  Samuel died in Norton, Mass.  between 19 Nov 1735 (will, in 70th yr.) and 16 Dec. 1735 (est. inv.).

5. Martha Carpenter

The daughter born between 1662 and 1671; (place in birth order uncertain) is often said to be Martha Carpenter who was born ca. 1663 and died at Swansea 22 March 1735, in her 73rd yr..  However,  according to Carpenters’ Encyclopedia of Carpenters 2008 Update , Martha was in fact their daughter-in-law Martha (Bliss) (Toogood) Carpenter, 2nd wife of their son Benjamin (2. above) (NEHGR 159:361–62; see also WILL/ESTATE, above). Her proper identification eliminates the sole basis for the assertion that Joseph and Margaret had a daughter Martha. This source also identifies another daughter born between 1662 and 1671; place in birth order uncertain.

6. John Carpenter

Amos Carpenter mistakenly presents John and his sister Hannah as twins, born on 21 Jan. [sic] 1671/2. John’s birth is not recorded, however, and his age at death makes him about five years her senior (NEHGR 159:43–47 [also includes vital-event data about John’s children—Martha, Mary, Sarah, Diadema, Prudence, Cornel, Dinah, and Joseph—
seven of whom Amos Carpenter mistakenly attributes (as he does two of John’s wives) to another John Carpenter, son of Oliver4 Carpenter (Abiah3) of Warwick and North Kingstown, R.I. (see Carpenter [1898] 75, 128–29)]; EGPR 2:67–73, at 67;
see also Carpenter [1898] 58

John’s first wife Mary Coleson was born xx.

Johns’s second wife Elizabeth Grinnell was born 29 Jul 1691 .  Her parents were Matthew Grinnell and [__?__].   She died before  1727.

John’s third wife Abigail Day was born 29 Mar 1695 in Dedham, Suffolk, Mass.   Her parents were Ralph Day Jr. (1657 – 1677) and Sarah Fuller (1659 – 1736). Her grandparents were Ralph DAY and Susan FAIRBANKS. She first married 16 May 1721 in Boston, Mass to Michael Bacon.

7. Hannah CARPENTER (See Thomas SKINNER III‘s page)

9. Margaret Carpenter

Margaret’s husband Thomas Chaffee was born 19 Oct 1672 Swansea, Mass. His parents were Nathaniel Chaffee and Experience Bliss. Thomas died 21 Feb 1754 Rehoboth, Mass.

At the time of his marriage Thomas Chaffee lived in Rehoboth, where he “is called “yeoman.”

9 Nov 1703 – He sold to his brother, Nathaniel of Rehoboth, twelve acres of land in that town. In the record of this transaction he is called “weaver” and Nathaniel “blacksmith.”

1 Jul 1706 – Thomas Chaffee was chosen to serve on the Jury of Trials at Bristol, Mass., “on the second Tuesday of July inst.”

17 Oct 1711 – Petition was presented to the General Court asking that the town of Rehoboth be divided into two precincts for the support of the ministry, as some of the petitioners were living from four to seven miles from meeting. Among the names signed are those of Thomas Chaffee and his brother Jonathan.

10 Jan 1718 – Thomas bought for ₤15 of Joseph Russ of Ashford, Conn. one hundred acres of land in the western part of town. At that time and in all other records he is spoken of as “of Rehoboth”; apparently he never lived in Ashford, nor, so far as is known did any of his children.

29 Mar 1721 – At a town meeting held in Rehoboth in the West Meeting House he was chosen Surveyor of the Highway and on March 25, 1723, Constable.

4 May 1730 -He sold for ₤30, a few acres of land in Barrington, Mass. (formerly Swansea) to Joseph Chaffee, Sr., his cousin who lived there.

9 Jan 1731 – Thomas Chaffee was baptized in the First Congregational Church in Rehoboth, prior to becoming a church member, March 5, 1732.

17 Aug 1736 – He administered the estate of his brother Noah

28 May 1737 – “Thomas Chaffee yeoman of Rehoboth” for “love, goodwill and affection” sold (or rather gave)  sixteen acres of land in Rehoboth, “being part of the Grantor’s Homelot,” to the heirs of his son Amos, “Freelove, Lilis, and Unis Chaffee.” For the same reason he “sold” to his son Thomas, Jr., of Rehoboth, May 39, 1737, forty acres in that town, being also part of the home lot.

Sources:

http://www.genealogyofnewengland.com/b_c.htm#carpenter

http://carpentercousins.com/Joseph3_Rehoboth&Swansea.pdf– JOSEPH3 CARPENTER (WILLIAM2–1) OF REHOBOTH AND SWANSEA, MASSACHUSETTS
by Eugene Cole Zubrinsky, FASG Ojai, California, 2008 Last revised 18 October 2011 Prepared for Carpenters’ Encyclopedia of Carpenters 2008 Update.

http://carpentercousins.com/carplink.htm

http://huskey-ogle-family.tripod.com/ancestorarchives/id46.html

http://www.histarch.uiuc.edu/plymouth/P278.htm

http://trees.ancestry.com/owt/person.aspx?pid=119741569&st=1