Hello Carpenters,
I was just rereading this letter and realized if one couple can produce 260
offspring in one lifetime, it is no wonder it is so hard to follow a family
tree. My g.g.g.grandmother wrote this in 1911 in a published letter to the
Primitive Baptist. Thought I would share this part with you.
THE PEACE
"My maiden name was Sallie Harlen. My father�s name was Zachariah Harlen,
and my mother�s name was Juda Wilkins. I was born in Georgia in Oglethorpe
or Wilks, I can�t say which. Was brought from there to Walton before I was
five years old, and from there to Henry County before I was six. I lived
there until I was grown......
I married a good man named Warren Carpenter in 11-11-1838 in my nineteenth
year. In 1848 my dear husband and I joined the Primitive Baptist Church and
were baptized by Elder Allen Cleveland, the second Sunday in February. It
was a cold day, but to me it was the most pleasant day I ever saw. That fall
after we joied the church at Lebanon we made our first move to from Henry
County to Alabama. .......
It seems like I am staying here a long time. If I live until the first day
of March I will be ninety-one years old. My offspring is large. I now have
but four living children out of nine. Of my grandchildren there are
fifty-five; great-grandchildren, 174; great-great grandchildren,
twenty-two; making in all 260. Of this number there are, as near as I can
count, thirty-six of them dead. My oldest child is in her seventy-second
year and is still able to come from North Alabama to see me. My youngest is
nearly fifty-five years old, and is the father of thirteen children. ......
I know that within myself I do nothing. I hope my loving Jesus will be
near that I may lean my head on His breast and breathe my life out sweetly
there, and waft my soul to that home where there will be no sorrow nor sad
farewells. Your sister in hope of a better world, Sallie Carpenter
Ashland, Alabama
P.S. I have been a member at Macedonia sixty-years this past January...."
* I have been told that the original church was extablished in 1843 two miles
northwest of Lineville on Good Hope Rd. then moved closer to Ashland in 1887.
The cemetary on the original cite is the location of Great Grandma Sallie,
her husband, three daughters, one grandchild and her mother�s graves.
Donna