Thursday, March 13, 2014

The Carpenter School

The photo on the left is from Glenette Forgea's scrapbook; I took the one on the right yesterday. According to Mrs. Forgea, it was the home of the first private school in the village, and was conducted by Mrs. Sarah (Fish) Carpenter around 1870. Mrs. Carpenter's husband, Stephen Carpenter, ran the Weekly with his twin brother, Samuel, and printed it out of this house.

1870 US Federal Census
Sure enough, the 1870 census shows Stephen and Sarah Carpenter living in the house with their six-year-old son, Mariah Fish (likely a relation of Sarah's, perhaps her grandmother), 15-year-old Ophelia Prier, Susan and Eddie Wood, and Stephen's twin brother Samuel. Both Stephen and Samuel were listed as "teachers," while Sarah was given no occupation, despite the fact that she apparently ran the school (I tend to refer to the 1870 census as the "sexist census" because it doesn't list married women's names, only "Mrs. Husband's Name," but it seems that it was sexist in other ways too!).

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