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Charles Whitney Carpenter was born in Albany, N. Y., March 13, 1847, and graduated from the Albany Academy in 1864. He was subsequently a clerk in the wholesale grocery store of E. C. Batchelder & Co., of Albany, until June 10, 1869, when he went to New York city and accepted the position of cashier and bookkeeper for J. N. Perkins & Co., brokers, in Wall street. Eighteen months later he entered, as a clerk, the well known establishment of R. Hoe & Co., with whom he has ever since remained, becoming in a short time their correspondent, confidential clerk, and salesman.
The firm of R. Hoe & Co. was founded by Robert Hoe about the year 1804 under the name of Robert Hoe & Co., and is the largest printing press manufactory in the world. Many changes have occurred in the firm, by death and from other causes, since Mr. Carpenter became associated with the house, and on January 1, 1888, he was admitted to partnership. The firm now consists cf Robert Hoe, Theodore H. Mead, and Mr. Carpenter. R. Hoe & Co. have gained a world-wide reputation in the manufacture of printing presses of every size and description, ranging in price from about $1,000 to the great combined newspaper and color press costing $55,000. Wherever printing is done their name is known. They also manufacture immense quantities of cast steel circular saws, which go to every country on the globe. In their New York establishment they employ from 1,400 to 1,500 men, manufacturing almost everything used by the printer, excepting type, ink, and paper. Here also are about 300 apprentice boys under competent instructors and professors. In the London works some 600 men are employed, making presses for England and her colonies.
Mr. Carpenter is an able business man, and has always been a staunch Republican, following, in this respect, in the footsteps of his grandfather, father, and brother. He is amember of the Sons of the Revolution through his father's maternal grandfather, Mr. Mascraft, and is also a member of the New England Society and the Union League and Grolier Club of New York.
On October 16, 1869, he was married to Miss Caroline Bowne Smith, a great-granddaughter of Walter Bowne, who was mayor of New York city from 1829-1888. They have had eight children: Arthur and Jessie, deceased; and Lilian, George W., 2d, Florence, Charles W., Jr., Adele, and Beatrice.
Charles Whitney Carpenter is descended from an old Albany family, his paternal grandfather, Henry, being a life-long resident of that city. His father, George W. Carpenter, who still resides in Albany at the age of eighty-six, was educated at the Albany Academy and afterward became one of its professors; later he was for over twenty years the city surveyor, and subsequently was superintendent and engineer of the Albany Water Works for over forty years and an active member of the Board of Education for more than twenty-five years, being most of that time its president. He married Mary Ann Burton, who died in 1877.
