There is added information below this article that will correct some misleading data. 
Submitted by: Gordon Mcquerry
KNOW YOUR FLATWOODS (Update) by Gerald Tudor Anne Burnside Brown, over the years was instrumental in bringing Garrard County's history and its people to a very colorful existance. For all of this we thank her, but she so often relied upon the recalled traditions of descendants of the people she wrote about. In the case of the Know Your Flatwoods article on the Carpenter family, there are several minor errors involving dates, names and places. In the late 1930's, a descendant of this family, attempting to gather data on the roots of Zophar Carpenter, enlisted the National Media Research for answers. The Media Research was then one of the only sources for those who could not travel to distant depositories for research. The result was a generalization report on the Carpenter family as a whole. It described some of the earlier Carpenters as settling in various states including Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Virginia, with no specific relation to the name Zophar. Unfortunately, descendants chose the wrong Carpenter family as the fore-parents of Zophar. Today, much better resources are available and as a result the following is offered to correct some of the data in Ms. Brown's 1940's article. Pennsylvania and North Carolina were never states that Zophar's family lived in. His proven route was from New York to Virginia to Kentucky. He came to Kentucky not in 1786, but in about 1789-1790 as he first appears on the Tax List for 1791 and was last recorded in Virginia in 1789 when he sold his land. Zophar was never a Revolutionary soldier, but rather a patriot by his supply of wheat and beef for the cause. He was, however a soldier of the French and Indian Wars much earlier. Zophar's tombstone only gives his age and date of death, as 65 on 6 February 1798, not 1796 as reported. His wife, Mary is also buried beside him and her name and dates are in fact inscribed on the same marker as Zophar's. She did not die before coming to Kentucky, but lived many years after Zophar's death, dying at age 97 in 1832. The sword claimed to be Zophar's was in fact the Civil War sword of William David Carpenter, Zophar's great grandson. William, the son of Samuel D. Carpenter was never a major in the Civil War, but rather an Adjutant with the rank of Lt. This up-date is to only provide corrected data which is so readily available today (2001) and not to criticize that reported over 50 years in the past when resources were not made so readily available. Zophar and Mary Carpenter's cemetery marker
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