CARPENTER CARPENTER. IOI charge of the Independent Christian church at Ciloucester — the church founded in 1770 by Rev. John Murray. He remained with this church for four years, when he accepted a call to St. Paul, Minn., where he spent a year, and then became pastor of the First Universalis! church at Providence, R. I. From here he was called to the presidency of his alma mater, and inaug- urated June 2, 1875. While he was a student in college, Mr. Capen was sent to the Legislature, in i860, where he was the youngest member. Since 1876 he has been a trustee of the Univer- salis! General Convention. In 1877 he received the honorary degree of D. 1). from the St. Lawrence University of New York. For the last four years he has been presi- dent of the Law and Order League of Massachusetts. He was appointed by Gov- ernor Ames, in December, 1888, a member of the board of education. Dr. Capen's government of Tufts Col- lege has been signally successful in various directions. Endowments and buildings have been added, and the number of stu- dents has constantly increased. Dr. Capen has been twice married : first to Letitia H. Mussey, of New London, Conn., and in February, 1877, to Mary L., daughter of Oliver Edwards, of Hrookline. He has three children : Samuel Paul, aged eleven ; Ruth Paul, aged ten, and Rosa- mund Edwards, an infant. CARPENTER, ERASTUS PaYSON, son of Daniel and Abigail (Payson) Carpen- ter, was born in Foxborough, Norfolk county, November 23, 1822. His father was a soldier in the war of 1812, and an enterprising and successful manufac- turer and business man. His paternal grandfather was an officer in the rev- olutionary army, and his mother's grand- father was the first town clerk of Fox- borough. He received his early education in the public schools of his native town, Tol- man's private school, Baker's Academy (Dorchester), Day's Academy (Wrentham) and under the private tuition of Rev. Mor- timer Blake. Before completing his preparation for college, he decided upon a business career, and at the age of twenty entered the employ of his cousin, Oliver Carpen- ter, in the straw goods business, at one hundred and twenty -five dollars per annum. Here he remained some five months, when he entered the employ of Warren Carpenter, a brother of Oliver, engaged in the same business. In Janu- ary, 1843, while yet a minor, he entered into partnership with Warren Carpenter, having charge of a branch store in Rich- mond, Va. In 1852, with Oliver as part- ner, he built the Union straw works, Fox- borough, then the largest works of the kind in the world, employing some six thousand people. This business was successfully carried on until September, 1861, when Mr. Carpenter went to London, and sold the property connected with the business to Messrs. Vyse & Company, for whom he continued as superintendent and manager. This business frequently paid as high as $20,000 U. S. tax per month on manufac- tured goods. He remained connected with this business until 1870, when other inter- ests demanded his attention. Mr. Carpenter was a large stockholder in the local telegraph company which built and operated a line between Fox- borough and Mansfield in iSsS-'t). In 1862 he began his efforts to obtain rail- road accommodations, and organized the Foxborough Branch Railroad, which in time was merged into the Mansfield & Framingham Railroad, in which he at one time owned a controlling interest, and of which he was the first president. He was also president of the Framingham & Lowell, the Martha's Vineyard, and the New York, Boston, Albany &: Schenectady railroads. During the war of the rebellion Mr. Car- penter was unremitting in his efforts in be- half of the soldiers. He organized and was elected captain of a rifle company in 186 1, the town appropriating three thou- sand dollars to equip it with Sharp's rifles. When the services of this company were tendered the government, it was not accepted on account of its arms, as rifles then had not taken the place of muskets. He was chairman of the committee having in charge the expenditure of ten thousand dollars of the town's funds in aid of volun- teers and their families, and all his acts during the years of the war were such that when the veterans organized their (i. A. R. post, they named it the " E. P. Carpenter Post." In 1S72, '73 and '74 he was a member of the state Senate, serving as chairman of the railroad committee, and delivering one of the most able arguments upon the Hoosac Tunnel question ever presented, of which the Senate ordered ten thousand copies printed for distribution. Mr. Carpenter has held nearly all the offices in the gift of the town — chairman of selectmen, highway surveyor, overseer of
