Carpenters Bayou rises at the south end of Sheldon Reservoir in southeastern Harris County (29°51′N 95°10′W / 29.850°N 95.167°W / 29.850; -95.167), Texas, USA. The bayou waterway routes southeast for about twelve miles until it joins Buffalo Bayou at the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site (29°45′N 95°06′W / 29.750°N 95.100°W / 29.750; -95.100).

The bayou's name commemorates David Carpenter, a partner of William Harris as one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred" families of Austin's Colony in what later became Texas. Carpenter and Harris received a sitio of land in present Harris County, Texas on August 16, 1824, which fronted on Carpenter's Bayou in southeastern Harris County, near San Felipe de Austin. Carpenter was a blacksmith, and a single man at the time of the grant. He may have died as early as 1828, the year that Noah Smithwick bought his blacksmith's outfit in San Felipe.

• List of rivers of Texas

• "NOAA Nautical Chart 11325" [Houston Ship Channel - Carpenters Bayou to Houston; Buffalo Bayou]. NOAA Office of Coast Survey. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.