Biography of Thomas J. Carpenter - Conway Co, AR

***********************************************************
Submitted by: Cathy Barnes <bbarnes@cswnet.com>
        Date: 21 Jun 1998
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
***********************************************************

SOURCE: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Western Arkansas.
Goodspeed Publishers, 1891.

page 53

Thomas J. Carpenter, also one of the representative citizens and substantial
farmers of Lick Mountain Township, owes his nativity to Blount County, East
Tennessee, where he was born in 1844, the fourth of a family of six sons and
nine daughters born to Lawson and Sarah (Cossner) Carpenter, who were natives of
North Carolina, but married in Tennessee, and when T. J. was about two years old
they crossed the line into Maury County, Georgia, where they made their home
till about 1872. They removed to Izard County, Arkansas, where Mr. Carpenter
died in 1889, over 80 years old, a member of the Presbyterian Church. Mrs.
Carpenter is still living, and is about seventy-five years of age; she is a
Methodist. Mr. Carpenter was a farmer and black-smith; served in the home guards
during the late war. His father, Thomas Carpenter, was of German ancestry, and a
farmer of Blount County, Tennessee, where he died. The subject of these brief
memoirs (T. J. Carpenter) received a common school education, and has spent all
his life on a farm. In 1866 he wedded a native Tennesseean, Sarah E. White, a
daughter of Daniel and Miranda White, who were also born in Tennessee, and after
marriage removed to Maury County, Georgia; thence to Izard County, Arkansas,
where Mrs. White died. Mr. White afterward came to Conway County, where he has
since died. To this union of Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter nine children were born, two
sons and five daughters living. In 1872 Mr. Carpenter removed from Maury County,
Georgia, to Izard County, Arkansas, and about the year 1879 came to Conway
County, and the year following purchased his present farm of 132 acres, one mile
east of Lick Mountain Post Office, all the result of hard work. Mr. and Mrs.
Carpenter are Cumberland Presbyterians, and Mr. Carpenter is a Democrat.