Thomas Carter (1608 – 5 September 1684) was an American colonist and Puritan minister. Educated at Cambridge, he left England and emigrated to the American colonies during the Puritan Great Migration. Carter was ordained as a Puritan minister in 1642, becoming the first person in the American colonies to receive a Christian ordination. He served as a church elder and minister in Dedham, Watertown, and Woburn. A prominent religious figure in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Carter was one signers of the Dedham Covenant and one of the founders of Woburn.