Edmund Carpenter

Biography

Edmund Carpenter ran a general blacksmithing business in the Seekonk area of southeastern Massachusetts for nearly forty years. The account in the 1898 Carpenter genealogy places his trade at the center of the family's working life. His son Francis purchased iron for him from Gilbert Congdon's firm in Providence, Rhode Island; that contact led to Francis entering the firm's employment in July 1848. Edmund's shop thus supplied the practical connection through which his son began a different career in the iron trade.

Edmund was a son of Otis Carpenter and Mehitable Phinney. A baptism index records him at Seekonk on January 2, 1806, when that area was still part of Rehoboth. In September 1830, his intention to marry Lemira Tiffany was published at Barrington, Rhode Island. Lemira came from the Tiffany household there, while the couple's children were born in Seekonk.

The 1850 census abstract places Edmund and Lemira together with Francis, nineteen, Sarah, fifteen, and Ann, ten. Those names correspond with the genealogy's Francis Wood, Sarah Tiffany and Anna Elizabeth. The two sources give a household view of the years in which Edmund's blacksmith business and his son's early employment overlapped.

Edmund died in November 1873; Lemira survived until 1888. Their memorials are at Newman Cemetery.

Marriage intentions were entered on September 1, 1830. His mother’s full name in the family record is Mehitable Sturgis Phinney.