William Carpenter (Rhode Island colonist)

William Carpenter was the son of Richard Carpenter, who was born in England, probably in or near the Wiltshire town and parish of Amesbury or the adjacent parish of Newton Ton(e)y. His mother may have been Alice Knight, but this is not confirmed.

William married Elizabeth Arnold (Nov 23, 1611 - after Sep 7, 1685), who was born in Ilchester, Somerset, England, the daughter of William Arnold (June 24, 1587 - 1675/76) and sister of Benedict Arnold, the first governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.[1] William and Elizabeth had eight children together: Joseph, Lydia, Ephraim, Priscilla, Timothy, Silas, Benjamin, and William. The couple were probably buried on their homestead in present-day Cranston, Rhode Island.[2][3]

William Carpenter is the first person bearing the surname "Carpenter" to make permanent settlement in America.[4] He settled in Providence Plantation and was instrumental in its development as a Colony, holding many public offices.

Original 1600s town layout of Providence, RI with many of the street names on the East Side named after the original homestead strip owners. William Carpenter's lot is left of the letter "D" in Providence Neck.

• List of early settlers of Rhode Island
• Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

• Virginia DeJohn Anderson (1992) [1991]. New England's Generation: The Great Migration and the Formation of Society and Culture in the Seventeenth Century. Reprint. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-44764-5.
• Francis J. Bremer (1995). The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to Edwards. Lebanon, N.H.: UPNE. ISBN 978-0-87451-728-6.
• Carl Bridenbaugh (1974). Fat Mutton and Liberty of Conscience: Society in Rhode Island, 1636–1690. Providence: Brown University Press. ISBN 978-0-87057-143-5.
  • The Bridenbaugh volume is a good general introduction to Rhode Island history but nevertheless misinterprets Weeden (Early RI 87) in saying that, to build William Harris's Pawtuxet house, William Carpenter was brought from Amesbury in Massachusetts Bay Colony (see Bridenbaugh 38, 141).
• Samuel Hugh Brockunier (1940). The Irrepressible Democrat Roger Williams. New York: The Ronald Press Company. ISBN 978-0-471-07041-2.
• Bruce C. Daniels (1983). Dissent and Conformity on Narragansett Bay: The Colonial Rhode Island Town. Middletown, Conn.: Books on Demand. ISBN 978-0-608-03570-3.
• Stephen Foster (1996). The Long Argument: English Puritanism and the Shaping of New England Culture. Chapel Hill, N.C.: UNC Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-4583-7.
• Harris Papers, Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society, vol. 10 (Providence, 1902);
• Anne Keary, "Retelling the History of the Settlement of Providence: Speech, Writing, and Cultural Interaction on Narragansett Bay," The New England Quarterly 69(1996):250–86;
• Glenn W. LaFantasie, ed., The Correspondence of Roger Williams, 2 vols. (Providence, 1988);
• Patricia E. Rubertone (2001). Grave Undertakings, An Archeology of Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 978-1-56098-975-2.
• William R. Staples (1843). Annals of the Town of Providence. Providence: Knowles and Vose. Annals of the Town of Providence.
• Hugh Trevor-Roper (2000) [1940]. Archbishop Laud: 1573–1645. Reprint. London: Orion Publishing Group, Limited. ISBN 978-1-84212-202-0.
• Wrightson, Keith; Levine, David (1995). Poverty and Piety in an English Village: Terling, 1525–1700. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820321-6.

History and Genealogy of the Carpenter Family in America From the Settlement at Providence, R.I., 1637-1901, Daniel Hoogland Carpenter, The Marion Press, Jamaica, New York, 1901

• William Arnold (settler)
• Benedict Arnold (governor)
• Stukeley Westcott
• Roger Williams (theologian)

• Pawtuxet Cove
• City of Cranston Official Site
• genetic research on William Carpenter.
• Carpenter Cousins research