Lemuel Carpenter
Bornc. 1808
Kentucky, U.S.
Died5 November 1859
Los Angeles, California
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur, rancher
Known forEarly California pioneer
Parent(s)Jonathan and Nancy (née Shouse) Carpenter

Lemuel Carpenter (c. 1808 in Kentucky – November 5, 1859 in California) was one of the first Anglo-American settlers of what is now the Los Angeles, California metropolitan area.

Early life

Lemuel Carpenter was born c. 1808 in Kentucky. He migrated to Missouri about 1828, where he served in Searcy's Company of Missouri Militia in 1829.[1]

Southern California Pioneer

1852 diseño of Rancho San Antonio showing Carpenter's jabonería. (South of the laguna.)

Carpenter was in the Alta California Territory of Mexico by January 1833, arriving in the company of trappers Cyrus Alexander, William Chard, Joseph Paulding, and Albert Toomes.[2][3][4][5] He later arrived in the Pueblo de Los Ángeles with the Ewing Young party of trappers along with Isaac "Julián" Williams and Moses Carson.[6]

Upon his arrival, Carpenter started a soap manufacturing business and set up his jabonería (soap factory) at Chokishgna, a Tongva-Gabrieleño village[7][8] west of the San Gabriel River, in Rancho San Antonio. The location of the jabonería was near the present-day crossing of the Interstate 5 and the Río Hondo in Bell Gardens.[9] He followed the practice of the California missions' indigenous people and used the abundant native amole plant as an alkali to produce hard soap.[7][10] The Historical Society of Southern California would later credit him as the first commercial soap manufacturer in Southern California.[6][11] His business profited sufficiently for him to purchase Rancho Santa Gertrudes, which included the Tongva village Nacaugna, now Downey, California, southeast of what is now downtown Los Angeles.[12][13]

By the late 1830s, was among the first of the Americans to plant a vineyard for the making of wine.[14]

In the 1836 padrón or census of Los Angeles, he was listed as Samuel Carpenter and was one of fifty foreigners living in the pueblo.[11] Early California settler John Bidwell first saw the Pueblo de Los Ángeles in March 1845 and, years later, would list Lemuel Carpenter as one of the settlers of the pueblo who he recalled out of about 250 residents.[15]

His original settlement was known as "Carpenter's Farm" from 1837 until it was destroyed by a flood in 1867.[16] He tried gold mining, and in general prospered in his new home. A popular travel guide notes: "Rancho Santa Gertrudes…was sold to Lemuel Carpenter, a Kentuckian, who married the beautiful María de los Angeles Domínguez. ... The Carpenters [were] happy and prosperous under Mexican rule".[12][17]

Carpenter was active in revolutionary activities and sided with the Americans during the Mexican–American War.[4] He was held as a prisoner of war and on September 30, 1846, he was received by American forces during a prisoner exchange between Californio forces and detachments of Companies B and D of the California Battalion and Los Angeles volunteers under the command of Archibald H. Gillespe.[18]

Rancho Santa Gertrudes was owned by Lemuel Carpenter until 1859.[17] In 1859 the rancho was sold at sheriff's auction to John G. Downey and James P. McFarland. "Samuel", actually "Lemuel" but misspelled by the recorder, Carpenter was recorded as the legal possessor as late as 1862.[19]

Family

Dating from the era of the Pueblo de Los Ángeles, The Plaza and "Old Plaza Church" (Mission Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles) in 1869.

Lemuel's father is believed to be Jonathan Carpenter (c. 1785 Virginia-c. 1853 Missouri) and grandson of Matthew Carpenter (c. 1761 Virginia-c. 1798 Virginia).[20]

In the 1850 census,[21] Lemuel Carpenter is listed as age 42, with a real estate value of $8,000 dollars, a farmer. His wife, Maria, is listed as age 22 — she was his second wife. His children, all born in California, are listed as:

  • Susana Carpenter, age 11.
  • José Antonio Carpenter, age 9 (born November 20, 1837; descendants still live in Los Angeles[22])
  • Refugio Carpenter, age 6.
  • Francisco Carpenter, age 3.

Misfortune and Death

Carpenter's prosperity took a precipitous downturn when a $5,000 loan from John G. Downey taken out in 1852 ballooned into a $104,000 debt by 1859.[3][23] Unable to repay the debt, he eventually killed himself.[24]

The diary of Lemuel Carpenter's daughter Mary Refugio Carpenter includes this entry written on January 2, 1861: "I have been thinking so much of my father tonight. It made me weep."[25]

References and notes

  1. ↑ White, Virgil D. (1994). A-K. Index to Volunteer Soldiers in Indian Wars and Disturbances, 1815-1858. Vol. I. Waynesboro, Tennessee: National Historical Publishing Company. p. 217.
  2. ↑ Weber, David J. (1971). The Taos Trappers: The Fur Trade in the Far Southwest, 1540-1846. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. p. 152.
  3. 1 2 Wilson, Iris Higbie (1972). Hafen, LeRoy Reuben (ed.). Lemuel Carpenter. The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West. Vol. IX. Glendale, California: Arthur H. Clark Company. pp. 33–40.
  4. 1 2 Bancroft, Hubert Howe (1964). California Pioneer Register and Index 1542-1848. Baltimore, Maryland: Regional Publishing Company. p. 82.
  5. ↑ Quinn, Charles Russel (1973). History of Downey, The Life Story of a Pioneer Community, and of the Man who Founded it – California Governor John Gately Downey – From Covered Wagon to the Space Shuttle. Downey, California: Elena Quinn. pp. 12, 20–22, 32, 104–105.
  6. 1 2 Layne, J. Gregg (1934). "Annals of Los Angeles: Part I. from the Founding of the Pueblo to the American Occupation". California Historical Society Quarterly. 13 (3): 195–234. doi:10.2307/25160525. ISSN 0008-1175. JSTOR 25160525.
  7. 1 2 Dyson, Verne (December 18, 1927). "The Old Ranchos That are Buried in Los Angeles". Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine. pp. 12–13, 23. Retrieved June 28, 2023.
  8. ↑ Webb Hodge, Frederick, ed. (1907). "Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico". Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office. 30 (1): 290.
  9. ↑ Beherec, Marc A. (2020). "Ethnohistoric South Gate?" (PDF). Society for California Archaeology Proceedings. 34: 90.
  10. ↑ Warner, J. J. (1907). "Reminiscences of Early California from 1831 to 1846". Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California. 7 (2/3): 176–193. doi:10.2307/41168638. ISSN 2162-9145. JSTOR 41168638.
  11. 1 2 Layne, J. Gregg (1936). "The First Census of the Los Angeles District: Padron de la Ciudad de Los Angeles y su Jurisdiccion Año 1836". The Quarterly: Historical Society of Southern California. 18 (3): 81–99. doi:10.2307/41168947. ISSN 2162-9358. JSTOR 41168947.
  12. 1 2 Brooke Hoover, Mildred; Rensch, Hero Eugene; Rensch, Ethel Grace (1966). Abeloe, William N. (ed.). Historic spots in California (3rd ed.). Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. pp. 153, 163, 20, 56, 401.
  13. ↑ Webb Hodge, Frederick, ed. (1910). "Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico". Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office. 30 (2): 5.
  14. ↑ Pinney, Thomas (1989). A History of Wine in America, From the Beginnings to Prohibition. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. p. 245. As California began to draw Americans both by sea and overland, others took up vine growing: Richard Laughlin, [...]; so did William Logan in 1831 and, later in the decade, William Chard and Lemuel Carpenter.
  15. ↑ Bidwell, John (1890). "Life in California Before the Gold Discovery". The Century. 41 (2): 175, 179.
  16. ↑ Susanna Bryant Dakin: A Scotch Paisano in Old Los Angeles, University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif., 1939, p. 220.
  17. 1 2 Carpenter, Terry (April 8, 2001). "Lemuel CARPENTER, Anglo L.A. Pioneer". Archived from the original on October 13, 2012. Retrieved June 3, 2009.
  18. ↑ Kurutz, Gary F. (2003). ""The Entire Southern Country Abandoned by the American Arms": An Eyewitness Account of the Siege of Los Angeles, 1846". Southern California Quarterly. 85 (2): 135. doi:10.2307/41172160. ISSN 0038-3929. JSTOR 41172160.
  19. ↑ "Plat of the Rancho Santa Gertrudes [Calif.] : finally confirmed to Samuel Carpenter as located by the U.S. Surveyor General in accordance with decree of U.S. Dist. Court, October 4th, 1862, May 1868". oac-upstream.cdlib.org. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  20. ↑ Lineage for #17908, Carpenter Cousins Y-DNA Project – see Table 1, Group 8, 17908.
  21. ↑ 1850 US Census of Los Angeles county, California. Reel No: M432-35 Sheet No: 27B, February 8th, 1851 by J. R. Evertsen, Asst. Marshal. Cited from http://www.rootsweb.com/~cenfiles/ca/losangeles/1850/pg0023a.txt
  22. ↑ Carpenters' Encyclopedia of Carpenters, record number 139492.
  23. ↑ Thrapp, Dan L. (1990). Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography. Spokane, Washington: Arthur H. Clarke Company. p. 228.
  24. ↑ Bartlett, Lanier, ed. (1930). On the Old West Coast; Being Further Reminiscences of a Ranger-Major Major Horace Bell. New York: William Morrow & Company, Incorporated.
  25. ↑ Adams, John (December 5, 1997). "Loss of her father casts shadow over her diary". Downey Eagle. Downey, California – via Downey Historical Society.
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