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Concept
James Henry Carpenter
Summary
James Henry Carpenter (September 14, 1846 – March 6, 1898) was a 19th-century American engineer and industrialist who founded the Carpenter Steel Company (renamed in 1968 as the Carpenter Technology Corporation). Born in Brooklyn, New York, he joined the Union Navy as a "cabin boy" at age 15 during the American Civil War, during which he was wounded in action. He was promoted to master's mate in the United States Navy for meritorious conduct and was appointed to the United States Naval Academy at age 16. He resigned from the US Navy in 1865, aged 19, and studied engineering in New Jersey.
On June 7, 1889, he founded the Carpenter Steel Company of Reading, Pennsylvania, becoming its general manager. Under his management, the company was a successful supplier of armor plating and ordnance to the US Navy.
Carpenter was born in New Jersey on September 14, 1846, to William H. Carpenter and Elizabeth Wallace. His father is believed to be a descendant of Rehoboth Carpenter family and of its founder William Carpenter (born about 1605 in England), who migrated to America in 1638 on the Bevis. Carpenter was the first of five children. His youngest brother, Dr. Frank E. Carpenter (born 10 Jul 1858) worked with him in the mid to late 1890s at the Carpenter Steel Company.
Carpenter spent time on Long Island as a child, both in Jamaica, Queens, and in Brooklyn. Fascinated by sailing ships and by how things worked, he learned to sail small boats and said he wanted to be a sailor. He went to sea as a cabin boy in 1860, aged 14, with his father's permission.
In May 1861, at the start of the American Civil War, the 15-year-old Carpenter enlisted as a "cabin boy" and was assigned to USS Santee, a recently commissioned 44-gun wooden-hulled three-mast frigate under the command of Captain Henry Eagle. Santee arrived in the Gulf of Mexico in July, headed for Galveston, Texas, for Union blockade duty.
Carpenter was present when Santee captured the Confederate States Navy schooner C.P. Knapp off the Florida coast and the CSN brig Delta off Galveston in October.
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