James Hardin Carpenter

1832 -

• Name	James Hardin Carpenter
  Birth	16 Mar 1832	Tennessee, USA   [1]
  Gender	Male
  Death	Texas, USA
  Origins
  Patriarch & Matriarch	Robert Carpenter,   b. Abt 1807, Tennessee d. 1879, Washington, Sharp, Arkansas, USA  (Age 72 years)  (Father)  MotherX,   b. 1765   d. Yes, date unknown  (Grandmother)
  Person ID	I435	1794 BARLOW-GAWF/GOFF (US-NC-WAK / US-TN-HEN) I-FTA50669
  Last Modified	20 Oct 2023

  
  

  Father	Robert Carpenter,   b. Abt 1807, Tennessee d. 1879, Washington, Sharp, Arkansas, USA (Age 72 years)
  Mother	Matilda Goff,   b. Between 1806 and 1810, North Carolina, USA d. 21 Jun 1885, Sharp, Arkansas, USA (Age 79 years)
  Family ID	F198	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Eliza,   b. Abt 1841, South Carolina, USA d. Yes, date unknown
  Family ID	F232	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	20 Oct 2023

  
  

• Notes

  1870 Piney Fork, Sharp Co., AR (indexed as I.H. CARPENTER) CARPENTER, J. H. 33 $175 value of prop TN Eliza 29 SC notes of Shelley WOODS: # ID: I55254793 # Name: James Hardin CARPENTER # Birth: Mar 6,1835 left Arkansas Oct 6,1870 went to Texas ( Childress County) they were last listed on the 1870 census Sharp CO,ARK Maureen, I searched through my records (books and other data) and could not find your subject, nor any mention of the name Carpenter except in the last 30 years or so. That included tombstone lists of every cemetery in Childress and neighboring counties. I looked through the names of the earliest cowboys and settlers in the area. John Quincy Adams, the father of my uncle by marriage, and his wife gave birth to the first girl born in Childress County. Another one of my uncles, Enoch Hassell, (by marriage) was a cowboy in the early days of the OX ranch. My family came to Childress County in 1905. I was born there in 1921 and knew, or knew of, most of the old timers still alive in the 20s and 30s. From the books, The Childress County Story, and They Followed The Rails, both about the early days of the area and the people who were there, I have prepared the following. Perhaps this will explain the difficulty of finding evidence of Mr. Carpenter. Childress County was not founded or named until 1887. It is written that "before Childress County was formed, the area was open range for Indians, buffalo hunters, and cattlemen." The Indians were peaceful, and traded at a stage station and trading post a few miles north east of Kirkland. This station had been established to support a stage coach line and wagon trail between Wichita Falls and Mobeetie. The first cattlemen to arrive with their herds occurred in the late 1870s and had formed four large ranches by 1882, the Mill Iron, the Diamond Trail, the Shoe Nail, and the OX. They held immense territory and owned thousands of cattle. They each had maybe 15 or 20 permanent (?) cowboys, and augmented these with those transients who came and went. There are lists of these cowboys as well as the first settlers in the books. The area was included with the formation of Donley County first, and subject to it's law. There was a collection of dugouts, stores, and a few houses at a location called Childress City, now referred to as the Old Childress site, that existed a few miles from where Childress now stands. A railroad was built through the County in 1895. The railroad went through a small town named Henry. The citizens disbanded Childress City and moved to Henry, and renamed the town Childress. There was a rapid influx of farmers from about 1905 until about 1920. Towns in the county in 1920 were Childress, Kirkland, Carey, Tell, Arlie, Garden Valley, Gilpin, Harrell Chapel, Highpoint, Loco, Lonnie, Olympus, Rivercamp, Shores Creek, each with schools, churches, cemeteries and stores. More schools were scattered about the County. They were Hughes, Victor, Berea, West Camp, Purple Hill, Prairie Hill, Lee, Shores Creek, Valley View, Springer, Ricks, Plainview, Cedar Hill, Mountain View, Hereford Grove, Cottonwood, Union Flat, and Whites Creek. All the schools are closed now except in Childress. Where there was once a farmhause every half mile in every direction, there is nothing but farmland or ranches now, and only three towns still exist outside of Childress. These three have maybe 20 people residing there. So that is a bit of history of the county. Enjoy! Sydney Key, in Arlington, TX

  
  

• Sources

  [S207] Lee, Virginia.