> The 17th century historian and genealogist Jean le Carpenter maintained > The Dutch Carpentiers, the Paris Charpentiers and the English Carpenters > were of the same origins, in Cambray,of what is now France and tracable = > to > the early 1000s. The descendants of Godefroy de Carpentier went to = > England > about 1300, he maintained. Cambray at that time was a separtate kingdom > called Hainaught. In 1328 the Queen of England was Philippa of = > Hainaught. > Philippa brought with her a whole colony of her countrymen connected > to weaving to settle in Norfork England which she took a personal = > interest > in and visited many times. John Carpenter the Town Clerk of London can = > be > associated with these events in two ways. First John was a lay member of = > the > Charterhouse, a religious house begun by a Sir Walter de Manny, from > Hainaught, who arrived in England with Philippa. Secondly, in the civil = > unrest > that took place in the later 1300s John the Town Clerk was asked to = > intervene > in the civil unrest in Norfork where he apparently had great influence. > There is a possibility a connection to cloth making existed > to the Carpenters from the beginning. In my own Carpenter line,weaving > was a tradition that only came to end end in the 1800s and extended back > to the 1600s. The Carpenter family had important links to the = > development > of the industry itelf along the Blackstone River near Rehoboth. William > Carpenter raised sheep in Massachusetts. His ancestors were Wiltshire > sheep farmers, the center for wool and related manufacture at that time > in England.=20 > Bruce Carpenter > Visiting Scholar > University of Washington > Professor > Tezukayama University,Japan