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Archiver > CARPENTER > 2005-03 > 1109794190


From: (John Chandler)
Subject: Re: [CARPENTER] questions
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 15:09:50 -0500 (EST)
References: <000901c51ec4$dd6f2840$735aa6d1@carp>
In-Reply-To: <000901c51ec4$dd6f2840$735aa6d1@carp>


Bruce wrote:
> I'm confused. Amos Carpenter claimed that William2 "was in the colony only
> three years when he was elected to the general Court of Plymouth (Memorial
> p. 38)." Does this mean that William2 was a representative of Weymouth or
> does it mean he was a general member of the Plymouth Court?

The Separation of Powers was not practiced in those days. The General
Court was both a legislative and a judicial body, and it consisted of
elected representatives of the various towns.

> presume before any deliberations for the move to Rehoboth.

Right. Rehoboth would not have had a representative until after it was
officially constituted as a town.

> This whole matter
> should be gone over carefully in the Plymouth records.

Even without perusing the colony records, I can report that Savage
says William1 (!) was elected representative in 1641 and 1643. It's
clear that either the list of the General Court is found in the Colony
records for those years or the Weymouth town records show the election
of William Carpenter (or both). It's not clear whether anything in
the records identifies the representative as William2. If the only
record is the list of members in the Colony records, then there are
surely no corroborating details, and probably not even a notation
that William was from Weymouth. (Note that Savage thinks it was
William1 who died in 1659/60 and supposes that William2's death
escaped detection somehow. Although Savage was "clearly" wrong about
that identification, this demonstrates how easy it is to go astray
when connecting the names in the records to the persons in a
genealogy.)

John Chandler

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