Background
Carpenter was born Ska-Run-Ya-Te (or Skaroniate) in Ontario, Canada in 1854, as a member of the Mohawk tribe, reportedly of the Wolf clan of the Six Nations.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Moses Carpenter
Edit Profile
Career
In the 1880s, he journeyed from his native Canada to Great Britain to join a traveling medicine show that sold alleged cures for illnesses ranging from rheumatism to the common cold. Contemporary reports state that the arrival of the show caravan created a spectacle that attracted large crowds wherever it set up camp. Not long after the show arrived in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire in August 1889, Carpenter developed a fever, and died on August 15, 1889 in the town"s North Riding Infirmary.
His funeral, held at Saint Pauls Church three days after his death, was said to have generated the largest turnout since the funeral of the town"s first mayor a decade earlier.
A poem written by a local girl was inscribed on his gravestone, which became a landmark, with people laying feathers at his grave over the years. Recently, restoration of the gravestone was undertaken to repair deterioration and vandalism.
In 2008, the efforts of a Middlesbrough resident led to the discovery of Carpenter"s origins by a Canadian Native American. Obtaining permissions for the repatriation complicates the proposed actions.
Both Canadian and British law must be observed, and permission must be granted from several other authorities, including the local town council and the Mohawk council.
In addition, contact must be made with Carpenter"s family before seeking permission from Middlesbrough Council and the British Government for removal of the remains.
Membership
Using his Mohawk name, he and other members of the show provided entertainment as teeth were extracted and potions applied by the show"s leader, a man who billed himself as "Sequah," but was actually an Englishman whose real name was reportedly William Hannaway Rowe. A former board member of the National Museum of the American Indian proposed taking a Mohawk party to Middlesbrough to perform traditional rites at the gravesite, and repatriating Carpenter"s remains to Canada.
