Can anybodytell me what this reads as?

Joined
Apr 21, 2013
Location
Eastern NC
Taken from the 1860 census.
photo19_zpsafdbaaf7.jpg
 
Can you post the full page, or a link to it, to compare more of the same handwriting?
 
I'm going to go with "Watch Maker," as well. The head-of-household listed above him has that same entry.

Scratch that -- the capital Ws elsewhere on the sheet are done differently. That first letter is a T:

Peeden 1860.jpg
 
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I have to disagree; granted, I don't see the other document which lists watch maker, but look at the sample above- the T in Troy matches the initial of the mystery word, and the last two letters in Joseph look very similar to the final two letters of the mystery word. The stroke above the final two letters doesn't really seem to go with either stroke, and there's not much of an indication of a C. Not sure what it could be though- but just doing the letter analysis I can't make it out as "watch."
 
That's a bugger. The first letter sure looks like an L to me and from the sample that Andy posted the last two letters look a lot like the ph at the end of Joseph. I can't find or think of something that matches that combination but that's what it looks like. Have to think about that a while.
 
I have to disagree; granted, I don't see the other document which lists watch maker, but look at the sample above- the T in Troy matches the initial of the mystery word, and the last two letters in Joseph look very similar to the final two letters of the mystery word. The stroke above the final two letters doesn't really seem to go with either stroke, and there's not much of an indication of a C. Not sure what it could be though- but just doing the letter analysis I can't make it out as "watch."
Those were all the attributes I saw, too, when I was trying to piece the letter forms into a name.
 
Even though there's no apostrophe in there, it could also be an abbreviation. It was very common to abbreviate words ending with T, such as govt.
 
Some people were listed in the 1860 census as "turpentine makers." Could this be "Turpt Maker" as an abbreviation?

I think it could be! At first I thought the r was wrong. But looking at it again, it might just be.
 
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