As many as 14 generations have passed since William Carpenter sailed from England in 1638 to establish a new life in the American Colonies. He spawned a family that spread across the land.

One of his descendants was Joseph David Carpenter, an Iowa farmer who worked the soil and raised sheep, married Minerva Judd, and established a large family of Carpenter descendants.

This is the story of that family: their early years in rural Iowa in the late 1800s, of the generations of forefathers who went before them, and the generations of descendants produced by Joseph David and Minerva Carpenter’s nine children.