Noah Carpenter

Biography

Noah Carpenter worked as a farmer and linen-wheelwright, making the spinning wheels used in processing linen thread. The published family genealogy also identifies him as a town and proprietors' clerk. Those roles placed him in both practical manufacture and the written administration of the community. He was born in 1672, a son of William Carpenter and Miriam, and married Sarah Johnson on December 3, 1700.

Their children included Stephen. The published town records also preserve the deaths of Simon in 1713, Martha in 1719 and Miriam in March 1725/26, naming Noah and Sarah as their parents. Sarah herself died in September 1726. The family entries therefore record several losses before the end of Noah's first marriage.

A land transaction gives a more public view of Noah in later middle age. On November 1, 1734, Noah Carpenter Sr. and Caleb Hall granted a small parcel of approximately forty-five square rods for the benefit of the Presbyterian congregation at Attleborough, Massachusetts. The genealogy's account describes the new meetinghouse as already standing on the land. The grant conveyed the ground beneath the existing meetinghouse. Its boundaries referred to the grantors' land and the county road.

That transaction joined private property to a continuing congregational use. The terms described the benefit as perpetual, giving the land transfer an intended life beyond either donor.

The abstract of Noah's will, dated February 1, 1756 and proved that April, names a wife, Tabithy, and children including Stephen, Noah, Simon and Elisha. The will belongs to a later family arrangement than his marriage to Sarah.

The chronology gives Noah’s birth as March 28, 1672 and names his mother as Miriam Saile, also rendered Searles. His will was proved on April 6, 1756.