Alexander Carpenter

  Noted events in his life were:

• Dates & Events. ⁴⁴⁶
Alexander Carpenter was a well-to-do landowner of Wrington, near Bath, in Somerset, England when he became a member of a group of separatists who wished to separate from the Anglican Church and worship according to the dictates of their consciences.

• Background Information. ⁴⁴⁸
Alexander was a Dissenter and on account of religious persecution removed with his family to Leyden. It was probably this Alexander who stopped at Yarmouth on his return to England. After quiet was restored he settled in Sommersetshire where his wife died.

~Genealogical history of the Rehoboth branch of the Carpenter family in America. Amos B. Carpenter, Carpenter & Morehouse, Amherst, Mass., 1898, p. 34

• Family Background. ⁴⁴⁸
According to Genealogical history of the Rehoboth branch of the Carpenter family in America . . . by Amos Bugbee Carpenter, Alexander ancestry starts with a man named John Carpenter who was born in 1303. Starting with Alexander and moving back through time the ancstry given is:

Ninth generation - Alexander, b. about 1560; the father of the Carpenter sisters who married promient Pilgrims who founded and moved to Plymouth colony. His brothers were James, William and Richard. James inherited their father's estate. William came to the American colonies on the ship "Bevis" and became the progenitor of the Rehoboth Carpenter family. Richard, the last brother, was the father of William Carpenter who settled in Providence with Roger Williams, and is the progenitor of the Providence branch of the Carpenter family.

Eighth Generation - William Carpenter

Seventh Generation - John Carpenter

Sixth Generation - James Carpenter

Fifth Generation - William Carpenter, b. abt 1550, d. 1520. He was William of Homme

Fourthe Generation - John Carpenter

Third Generation - John Carpenter who was the elder brother of John Carpenter, Town Clerk.

Second Generation - Richard Carpenter, b. about 1335; m. Chritina; bur. in the church of St Martin Outwich, Bishopsgate street. It is likely that he lived in London since his named appears in city records. Richard inherited at least a portion of his father's estate. He was a chaundeler and probably a goldsmith. He appears have been wealthy because both of his sons named John received a liberal education, something that was limited only certain people.

First Generation - John Carpenter, the first of the name that can be in English historical records, b. abt 1393, and a member of Parliament in 1325.

~Genealogical history of the Rehoboth branch of the Carpenter family in America, pp. 33-34

• Background Information. ⁴⁴⁸
The Carpenters and Southworths are so intimately connected by marriage with different members of the Pilgrim Colony that we find it difficult to eliminate them from the band of worshipers at Scrooby. George Morton, William Wright, Samuel Fuller, and Edward Southworth all married daughters of Alexander Carpenter, while Richard Cooper, another early settler of Plymouth, married the widow of William Wright; and Governor Bradford, after the loss of his first wife, married the widow of Edward Southworth. There is a tradition, too, that Bradford in early manhood had become attached to Alice (Carpenter) Southworth before her first marriage, but was opposed by her friends. The fact that after the loss of his wife, who was drowned in Cape Cod harbor, he proposed to her anew by letter soon after she became a widow, reinforces the tradition, and so mingles the Bradford and Carpenter families as to strengthen the probability of their common local origin and residence.

Alexander married Priscilla Dillen about 1581 in Leyden, Holland. (Priscilla Dillen was born in 1561-1568 in Wrington, Somersetshire, England and died on 21 Dec 1653 in Bath, Somerset, England.)