DAN CARPENTER
(Dealer in General Merchandise, Barry, Mo.)
Source: History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri, page 515
Dan Carpenter was born at Hanging Rock, Lawrence County, Ohio, on March 7, 1825. and received what education he could get in the common schools of his native and adopted State. At the age of 18 years he with his parents to Clinton County, Missouri, in 1843.
In 1845 he was established in merchandising at Randolph, Clay County, Missouri, with his elder brother, Amos Carpenter. In 1847 he moved to Barry, in the same county, where he has continued in mercantile pursuits until the present. In 1850 he crossed the plains to California with an ox train of merchandise. Selling most of his goods in Salt Lake City, he arrived in Placerville, California, on the 22d of September, just five months from his departure — as many months as it now requires days to make the same trip.
Returned to Missouri in 1851, via Panama and New Orleans, he re-engaged in merchandising with a reasonable degree of success and won for himself a good reputation for fair, honest, and honorable dealing. In merchandising, and buying and selling produce, he has had business frequently amounting to $50,000 per annum.
In December 1853, he was married to Miss Pauline Gash, daughter of Joseph D. and Eliza Gash, who was born in Buncombe County, N. C. While an infant her parents emigrated to Missouri, settling in Clay county in 1832, and by industry and economy, became of easy circumstances. Her father died in 1851, and her mother in 1865, both being substantial and influential members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
Mrs. Carpenter is an estimable Christian Indy, and prominent in every good work for the promotion of the interests of society, especially for the good of the young, has been a prominent Sabbath school teacher for thirty years, and an instructor of young ladies in music.
In 1859 Mr. C. professed faith in Christ, united with, and was soon made an elder in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which he still holds. In 1860 he was elected a superintendent of a Sabbath school, which position he still occupies, and has seen over 150 of his pupils united to the church.
He has been postmaster at Barry, with two intermissions of about four years, since 1852, serving under every administration from Franklin Pierce to Chester A. Arthur, and hopes to be honored by a continuance under Mr. Cleveland, of whom he was an ardent admirer and earnest supporter.
Being thoroughly Democratic in every political sentiment unless in being a prohibitionist in principle and practice for over thirty years, he differs from the principles of that party. Believing its principles to be misunderstood, he holds to the party that has ever advocated the greatest good to the greatest number.
In 1866 he began improvising, and in 1869 moved upon a good farm of 160 acres, and engaged in fruit raising and general agriculture, having one of the largest orchards in the county.
His chief endeavor is to promote the glory of God and influence his friends to become Christians, and no weather hinders the attendance of himself and his wife upon the means of grace or their work in the Sabbath school. For many years he has been an occasional correspondent of his county, church, and agricultural papers, discussing with freedom all questions of public, religious, and agricultural interest.
His father, William Carpenter, was a native of Harrison county, Va., born in 1792, whose father was a Methodist minister, and his mother, Hannah Clark, daughter of Samuel Clark, was born in Spottsylvania county, same state, 1798.
Wm. Carpenter was a merchant by occupation and surveyor by profession. He was prominent in the affairs of Lawrence county, Ohio, where he came at an early age with his parents; was colonel of a regiment of Ohio militia, at that time more honorable than now, and at one time represented his county in the Legislature, but declined re-election to the “muddy pool of politics”.
He belonged to the “minutemen,” and was called to the front in the War of 1812. After his death, his widow received a pension on account of his services, but he persistently refused to apply for it during his lifetime, declaring the Government needed the money worse than he did. How is it at the present day? Everything that can swear or prove the loss of hair or toenail is clamoring to be hung on the pension list.
During the late unpleasantness, he moved from his elegant home in Chester County to Leavenworth City, Kansas, on account of his attachment to the Union. After the “cruel war was over” he moved to Weston, Platte County, Missouri, where he died in 1873 at the age of 82 years. At one time he had amassed a considerable fortune for that day, before millionaires, had thick as blackberries, but the ravages of war swept a large part of it away.
He was a man of large experience, a logical mind, a close thinker, and was thoroughly informed in history, science, mechanics, morals, politics, and religion, and in his seventy-fifth year was admitted to the bar as a practitioner of law in the Platte County Circuit Court.
Mrs. C., his wife was a pious, Godly woman, who attended strictly to household duties and made home happy as only such mothers can do. She died in peace with God and man in the eighty-fourth year of her age.
The subject of this sketch enjoys the confidence of his friends and neighbors to an almost unlimited degree, and in the absence of ministers has held funeral services for about 100 of his neighbors, and their children who have gone the way of all the earth, offering them the consolations of the gospel of Christ, shedding the tear or sympathy with them over the loved and lost and assuring them of a “glorious resurrection,” and a happy home beyond on the golden shore, where friends and loved ones meet to part no more. His prayer is that whether he lives long or dies soon, he may be found doing the Master’s will and be ready for the call “Come up higher.”
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