French Carpenter Explained

French Carpenter
Birth Date:	7 June 1899
Birth Place:	Clay County, West Virginia US
Instrument:	Fiddle
Genre:	Old time
Occupation:	Musician

David French Carpenter, born June 7, 1899, in Clay County, West Virginia^[1] died May 22, 1965, was a noted West Virginia mountaineer old-time fiddle player.^{[2] [3]} He is listed by the Library of Congress as a musician on two sound recordings: Elzics Farewell, Kanawha, 1976; and Old-time music from Clay County, West Virginia, Charleston, West Virginia, Folk Promotions, 1964.^[4]

Notes and References

1. This birth date is the one given in his WWI Draft Registration Card, the Social Security Death Index, and the 1900 federal census; an article in The West Virginia Encyclopedia (Ken Sullivan, ed., The West Virginia Humanities Council, Charleston, W.Va., 2006, p. 114) gives his birth date as June 7, 1905.
2. Michael Kline: "French Carpenter" in The West Virginia Encyclopedia, Ken Sullivan, ed., The West Virginia Humanities Council, Charleston, W.Va., 2006, p. 114.
3. Gerald Milnes: "The Carpenter Legacy" in Play of a Fiddle, Traditional Music, Dance, and Folklore in West Virginia, The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky., 1999, pp. 35–44.
4. Library of Congress Online Catalog search for "French Carpenter", http://catalog.loc.gov/, January 27, 2011.