Daily AncestorCarpenter
A carpenter cut, shaped and joined timber to build houses, barns and other structures, rougher framing work than a joiner's or cabinetmaker's.
Carpenters traditionally worked in wood and did framing; until the end of the 1800s they framed post-and-beam buildings, which is now called timber framing. At sea, a ship's carpenter looked after the hull, masts and boats.
The 1850 instructions used carpenter as a model occupation entry, and in 1860 enumerators were told to write master carpenter for a man who employed others, to set him apart from the journeymen he hired.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1940 census
Asa Gould, 37, Carpenter
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Daily Ancestor. "Carpenter." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/carpenter. Last checked 2026-10-10.