In a previous posting ("So-Called Captain William Carpenter," 2/19/05), I quoted Amos B. Carpenter as saying that "[a]bout 1642, William Carpenter (No. 16), (b. in 1605 [sic]) was appointed Captain for one or more years by the General Court of Massachusetts at Boston. This appointment was made necessary by the attempt of Samuel Gorton and his followers to seize portions of the lands included in the Providence Plantations" . . . (_Carpenter Memorial_, 42). I went on to say in that posting that "in checking _Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1628-1686_, Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., 5 vols. in 6 (Boston, 1853-1854), I found no record whatsoever of a William Carpenter's having been made a captain. And if a William Carpenter had been made a temporary captain in 1642, to assist in putting down Gorton's encroachments on Providence Plantations, it would not have been William Carpenter of Rehoboth but William Carpenter of Providence." But having recently noticed Herbert F. Seversmith's statement that William2 of Rehoboth "was commissioned by the Essex court as Captain in 1642," I was prepared to eat my words as to which of the two William Carpenters was more likely to have been made a captain (see Seversmith, _Colonial Families of Long Island, New York and Connecticut_, volume 2 [1939], 552). A search of _Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, Volume 1 (1636-1656)_ (Salem, 1911), however, turned up nothing. While Seversmith's original work is far more reliable than Amos Carpenter's (the former was one of the best genealogists of his time), the idea that a Weymouth man would receive a commission in Essex County is puzzling. (In 1643, when the first Massachusetts counties were formed, Weymouth became a part of Suffolk County. The early county (quarterly) court records, however, predate the formation of the counties.) In any case, even if a record were to be found of William2's having been commissioned a captain in 1642 (perhaps in Suffolk Co. court records?), I would still argue that it is inappropriate to refer to him as Captain William Carpenter. So far as I'm aware, not a single Weymouth, Rehoboth, or Plymouth Colony record refers to William2 by that title. Any such appointment (heretofore unsubstantiated) would therefore have been too brief to constitute a significant aspect of his identity. If his contemporaries never referred to him as "Captain," what good reason is there for our doing so? Gene Z.