Lemuel Carpenter

[1] Carpenter was in the Alta California Territory of Mexico by January 1833, arriving in the company of trappers Cyrus Alexander, William Chard, Joseph Paulding, and Albert Toomes.

[2][3][4][5][6] He later arrived in the Pueblo de Los Ángeles with the Ewing Young party of trappers along with Isaac "Julián" Williams and Moses Carson.

[10] He followed the practice of the California missions' indigenous people and used the abundant native amole plant as an alkali to produce hard soap.

[7][12] His business profited sufficiently for him to purchase Rancho Santa Gertrudes,[13] which included the Tongva village of Nacaugna, now Downey, California, southeast of what is now downtown Los Angeles.

A popular travel guide notes: "Rancho Santa Gertrudes…was sold to Lemuel Carpenter, a Kentuckian, who married the beautiful María de los Angeles Domínguez.

His children, all born in California, are listed as: Carpenter's prosperity took a precipitous downturn when a $5,000 loan from John G. Downey taken out in 1852 ballooned into a $104,000 debt by 1859.