On Jul 7, 2011, at 12:01 AM, Johnlsaywhat(a)aol.com wrote:
Greenwood Jr. apparently married a woman by the name of Hannah and
moved to Albany, N.Y. Where he applied for a pension for his service in the Revolutionary
War. He may have died in 1828 when his pension was discontinued. It was later reinstated
to his widow Hannah who received government payments for many years.
In 1790, there was a Greenwood Carpenter (Sr.?) in Swanzey, Cheshire Co., New Hampshire,
and another (Jr.?) at Stillwater, then in Albany Co., New York. This, curiously, is the
only census in which the name appears. Revolutionary War pensioner Greenwood Carpenter
(file no. W6630), a common laborer in reduced circumstances, was first granted a pension
in 1818. when he was living at or near Williamsport, Lycoming Co., Pennsylvania. By the
time he refiled in 1820, he had moved to Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne Co., Pa. He claimed to
have enlisted at Swanzey in 1775 for a year and in 1776 for three years. His widow, whom
he had married in Swanzey on 15 March 1787, was the former Hannah Bishop. A deposition of
Hannah (Bishop) (Carpenter) Schenck's dated in 1842 indicates that she was then
residing in Hannibal, Oswego Co., N.Y.; that her husband, Greenwood Carpenter, had first
enlisted in 1775 at about age 16; and that he died in Aurelius, Cayuga Co., New York, on
or about 10 October 1832 (elsewhere she says middle of October 1831). Hannah received a
widow's pension at Lysander, Onondaga Co., N.Y., c1836-c1842; Hannibal, N.Y.,
1842-1847; and Adrian and/or Madison, Lenawee Co., Michigan, 1847-1851 or later.
There appear to be major conflicts here, however: Greenwood Carpenter's May 1818
deposition gives his age as 61, and his August 1820 application has him as 64. This would
put his birth date at between May and August 1756. If he had been about 16 in 1775 (as
per his widow's deposition), his birth year would have been about 1759. Neither of
these matches up well with Greenwood Carpenter Sr.'s namesake son's birth date,
recorded as 10 May 1763. If the pensioner had been born on the latter date, he would have
been no more than 12 when he first enlisted.
In an 1850 deposition, however, Hannah dates Greenwood's first enlistment as on or
about 12 July 1779, which date is confirmed by a Swanzey town record indicating that, in
return for his three-year enlistment, Greenwood Carpenter "Jr." was to receive
£66 10s. from the town (Benjamin Read, The History of Swanzey, New Hampshire, from 1734 to
1890 [Salem, Mass., 1892], 114). This matches the aforementioned description of Greenwood
as having been about 16 at his first enlistment and leaves little question that, despite
the file's inaccuracies, the pensioner in question was Greenwood Sr.'s son.
Gene Z.