Jonathan Carpenter, his grandfather, born September 7, 1749, was a son of Benedict Carpenter, who died June 22, 1791, and, because of British persecution during the Revolution, was forced to remove from Scarsdale to Long Island, where he married, on April 18, 1782, Miss Esther Coles. After peace was declared, he returned to Scarsdale, and took up his trade of a blacksmith. Jonathan Carpenter, Sr., had five children, the fourth of whom, Joseph Carpenter, was the father of the Jonathan who is the subject of this sketch. Joseph Carpenter, even before the War of the Rebellion, attained to wide celebrity because of his ojiposition to slavery. He was born at Scarsdale September 3, 1793, and on September 15, 1814, he married Margaret W. Cornell, who was of French descent.
There were two children, -- the oldest Esther and the second Jonathan, who was born at Scarsdale, September 11, 1816. While he was yet in infancy, his parents removed from Scarsdale to New Rochelle, and until his eighteenth year he was engaged in farming. At that time his poor health obliged him to give up the active work to which he had accustomed himself, and he did not resume it again till he was thirty.
j Mr. Carpenter's father then retired, and the whole working of the farm fell into his hands. For nearly forty years he has continued perseveringly at his labor, till at last, by dint of hard work and strict integrity, he has amassed a fortune. Since the place came into his possession he has added to it the Haviland property, containing seventy-seven acres of good farming land, with a saw-mill upon it, which he continues to operate at this time.