Individual Details

http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~carpenter/genealogy/manuscript.html
Adam Carpenter served a short term in the Revolutionary War and was unmarried at that time. There are few clues to the personality of Adam in the Carpenter family papers. Family tradition says that he was a minister, perhaps pressed into religious service because of later circumstances, and of course his own inclination. That he was a respected man of unquestioned honesty is evidenced by the number of legal matters in which he was named administrator or executor of wills later on in Kentucky.

It is not known if all the settlers of Carpenter’s Station traveled in one group, but if not, they must have been closely spaced. The known members of the group were: Conrad Carpenter; Adam Carpenter; John Carpenter with his wife the former Elisabeth Spears; and John Frye, also a Revolutionary War Veteran, with his wife Katherine (or Catherine) Spears and their infant daughter, Leah, who was born November 11, 1778 in Rockingham County, Virginia.
Catherine Spears Frye and Elisabeth Spears Carpenter were sisters. Undoubtedly, there were also other families. Probably Jacob Spears, brother of Catherine and Elisabeth, went along too, although he may have met the group in Kentucky. He was a member of the military at Harrodsburg during the 1770’s, and he later farmed land owned by his father in Lincoln County, Kentucky. In 1781, Jacob Spears married Elisabeth Neely, one of the first recorded marriages in Lincoln County, Ky.

The George Rogers Clark Muster Rolls record that Conrad Carpenter was a member of a ranging party of Lincoln County Militia under Thomas Montgomery and Benjamin Logan. He entered service on Feb. 28, 1782, and served till April 1, 1782, for which he was paid £1.18.2. Adam Carpenter is recorded as serving from March 15, 1782 to April 5, 1782 under Capt. Estill and Col. Benj. Logan. It would seem that the men of Carpenter’s Station took turns in service in the Militia so that the Station would not be undermanned any more than could be helped.


On March 9, 1784, Catherine Spears Frye and Adam Carpenter married, and they settled down to the business of establishing their plantation and raising a family. They made their home in a valley formed by the waters of Frye’s Creek, several miles south and a little west of the Station. Here begin the waters of Carpenter’s Creek which then joins Frye’s Creek a few miles south to flow into the Green River near Liberty, Kentucky. The valley is a rather wide one by eastern Kentucky standards, surrounded by the usual wooded knobs and floored with rolling hills. Perhaps the landscape reminded them of their former homeland in the Shenandoah. This land was part of Lincoln County, Kentucky, until 1806 when Casey County was created. The new boundary line was drawn a little south of the Station, so that the Station remained in Lincoln County.

The Adam Carpenter Family Bible and all of the original papers received by S. J. Carpenter were in 1976 donated to the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort, Kentucky.
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A transcription of family letters entitled "Letters from the A. W. Carpenter Family of Lincoln County, Kentucky 1869-1928" has also been printed by Virginia Carpenter. Copies are available at the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort, Kentucky, the Filson Club in Louisville, Kentucky, and the University of Kentucky Library in Lexington, Kentucky.

Marriage	9 Mar 1784	Catherine Spears
Death	14 Jan 1806

Spouse	Catherine Spears (1760 - 1848)
Child	William Carpenter (1785 - )
Child	Christina Carpenter (1787 - )
Child	Sarah Carpenter (1790 - )
Child	Mary Carpenter (1792 - )
Child	Margaret Carpenter (1794 - )
Child	George Carpenter (1797 - )
Child	Conrad Carpenter ( - )
Child	Henry Carpenter ( - )
Child	Catherine Carpenter (1801 - )
Child	Adam Carpenter (1804 - 1877)

Father	George Carpenter ( - 1779)
Mother	Anna Shulteli ( - )
Sibling	Conrad Carpenter ( - 1829)
Sibling	Henry Carpenter ( - )
Sibling	Barbara "Barbary" Carpenter ( - )