BIOGRAPHY: Cyrus Clay Carpenter
From the A.T. Andreas Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, 1875

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Page 362

	Honorable CYRUS CLAY CARPENTER, present Governor of Iowa, was born in 
Hartford Township, Susquehanna County Pennsylvania, on the 24th of November, 1829.  
This portion of Pennsylvania had been the home of his New England ancestors for three 
generations, whose hardy endurance, energy and perseverance, and redeemed it from a 
savage wilderness and converted its rugged and forest-covered hills into a fruitful field.  The 
story of the settlement of this region by the Carpenters and other pioneers is briefly as 
follows:
	In the Fall and Winter of 1789 several young men of Attleborough, Massachusetts, 
had frequent meetings to deliberate on the subject of leaving the place of their nativity for 
the unexplored forests of the West.  These men were mostly unmarried and without family 
hindrances to endure the hardships and dangers incident to pioneer life.  A few of the 
number were married and owned small farms.  A company of nine concluded to enter upon 
the undertaking in the Spring—their names were Caleb Richardson, Hosea Tiffany, Ezekiel 
Titus, Robert Follett, Moses Thatcher, Samuel Thatcher, John Carpenter, Daniel Carpenter 
and Josiah Carpenter.  Messrs. Tiffany, Titus and Follett were married.  They left 
Attleborough in two companies, by two different routes, and proceeded by way of 
Kinderhook to Albany, New York, where they made inquiries of the Surveyor General as to 
a favorable location.  He suggested Canajoharie, Herkimer and German Flats, as inviting 
fields, or, if not suited there, then Cherry Valley, or some town soon to be surveyed west of 
the Unadilla.  The reported sickness of the Mohawk Valley induced them to turn aside from 
the river and proceed to Cherry Valley, where they were inclined to settle, but on visiting 
one William Cooper they were invited to pass down the Susquehanna River with  him in a 
boat, free of expense, to view the lands of which he had the agency, lying about one hundred 
miles south.  Passing down the river they arrived at Great Bend, May 16.  Here they found a 
few families with whom they tarried over the Sabbath, and on the following Monday 
proceeded with Mr. Cooper, the surveyor, and other, into the wilderness in a southern 
direction.  On Tuesday they reached Beaver Meadow, and having found a good running 
spring, erected near it a bark cabin, the first "house" for a white man ever erected in that 
section.
	After several days spent in viewing the country, a purchase was made of a tract of 
land four miles long and one mile wide for 1,198.  The writings were drawn and signed on a 
hemlock stump, May 22, 1790.  Thus these hardy pioneers passed the fertile Valley of the 
Mohawk to find a home of their choice amid the heavy forests and rugged hills of 
Northeastern Pennsylvania.  Northern Pennsylvanian and the adjacent parts of New York 
were then but a wilderness.  Between Lanesborough and the mouth of Snake Creek, about a 
dozen families had located.  Another small settlement styled the "Irish settlement," had been 
made a Hopbottom, now Brooklyn, and another about fifteen or twenty miles below 
Thornbottom.  From neither of these places could a supply of provisions be obtained.  
Wilkesbarre and a French settlement below Towanda, on the Susquehanna, were the nearest 
points of supply, and to reach these a wilderness of forty or fifty miles had to be traversed, 
without beasts of burden or without the sign of a path or trail to lead them in the right 
direction.  These were the hardships to be overcome, only one generation ago, in a country 
now teeming with all the luxuries of modern civilization.  In the Spring of 1791 the most of 
them had made a home on their land, and very soon the settlement became known as the 
"Nine partners," which name it bore till 1807.
	Here the father of Cyrus C. Carpenter was born, and became the head of a family by 
his marriage with Miss Amanda M. Thayer.  He was a farmer in moderate circumstances.
	The father and mother of Cyrus died when he was quite young, being but ten at the 
death of his mother, and two years later he was left an orphan by the death of his father.  The 
protracted sickness  of his parents entirely exhausted the little property they has acquired by 
a life of industry.  Being left destitute, young Carpenter went first to learn the trade of 
clothier, at which he worked for some months, but not liking the trade, he quit, and soon 
after engaged with a farmer, and was employed in farm pursuits for some years, devoting a 
season each Winter to study in the district schools of the place.  When eighteen he 
commenced teaching school, and for the next four years divided his time between teaching 
and attending the academy in Hartford.  At the conclusion of this term of years he left his 
native state for Ohio, where he engaged in teaching school for one and a half years, and 
working in Simmer on the farm.  This was in Johnstown, Licking County, now one of the 
best counties in the state, with good soil, well improved farms, and a prosperous people, fuly 
up to the requirements of the age.
	In 1854 he turned his face westward. Stopping at various points in Illinois and Iowa, 
but not being satisfied, he still kept moving, until his arrival in Des Moines, then a town of 
some twelve hundred inhabitants, far from market, and not affording any very favorable 
prospect of coming greatness as a central commercial city of wealth and influence.  On 
account of the low state of his finances he was compelled to prosecute his search for a 
location on foot, which he did, traveling the whole distance to Fort Dodge, where he arrived 
June 28, 1854, and which was his home until his removal to Des Moines.  On this lonesome 
journey his entire worldly possessions were contained in a carpet sack which he carried in 
his hand.  At Fort Dodge he soon found employment as assistant to a government surveyor, 
in dividing townships immediately west of the Fort.  The contract was soon completed, and 
the employees returned to head quarters, where Mr. Carpenter assisted his landlord in cutting 
hay, but after working a few days he was employed to run the compass for Leech & Bell, of 
Davis, who had a contract of government surveying in what is now Palo Alto and Kossuth 
Counties.  In the early part of January he returned to Fort Dodge, and not having 
employment for a few weeks, he engaged in teaching school.  Early the next Spring he was 
employed to take charge of a set of hands and survey a contract taken by Haggard, of 
Dubuque.  This contract comprised the Counties of Emmet and the northern part of Kossuth.
	On his return to Fort Dodge he found that the land office which had been established 
at that place by act of Congress, was about to open for the sale of lands then coming into 
market.  Being familiar with the country, and the location of the most choice land, he opened 
a private land office, and in platting and surveying lands for those seeking homes, or land to 
enter on speculation, he found constant and profitable employment for the next three years.  
During this time he became extensively known, and being an active Republican from the 
organization of the party, he was naturally chosen as the standard bearer for that section of 
the state, as candidate for the State Legislature.  He was elected in the Fall of 1857, and took 
his seat in the session of 1858.  His district then comprised nineteen counties, which he 
represented during the following Legislative term, being the first session held in Des 
Moines, after the removal of the capital from Iowa City.
	In 1861, on the breaking out of the rebellion, he volunteered his services and was soon 
appointed to a responsible position, and assigned to duty as a commissary of subsistence.  
Serving in this department as a captain, much of the time being chief commissary of the left 
wing of the sixteenth army corps, until 1861, when he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, 
and assigned to duty on the staff of General Logan, as chief commissary of the fifteenth A. 
C.  He continued in the performance of this duty on the march through Georgia, and from 
Savannah to Raleigh, when, the war being closed, he went with his corps to Louisville, and 
was mustered out in August, 1865, having the rank of Brevet Colonel.

	Returning to Fort Dodge, he found that the wonderful development of the country and 
the increase in population had called new operators into the field, and that his business, once 
so prosperous, had passed into other hands.  Not being of a disposition to remain idle, he at 
once set himself about the improvement of a piece of land of which he was owner, where he 
remained until the Fall of 1866, when he was elected Register of the State Land Office, 
which required his removal to Des Moines.  He was re-elected to the same office in 1868, 
and refused a nomination in 1870—returning to Fort Dodge hopeful of remaining in private 
life.  But in this he was doomed to disappointment for the party to which he belonged could 
not spare his services.  Therefore in the Summer of 1871 he was nominated for Governor, 
and in the Fall was elected to fill the office of chief executive of Iowa, for two years.  He 
was inaugurated on the 11th of January, 1872, and his address delivered on this occasion was 
replete with fact in relation to the best interests of the state.  It is document but rarely, if ever 
surpassed by those entering upon duties in an untried field.  After alluding to the different 
material interests to be fostered, he closed this his first message to the Legislature, and to the 
people of Iowa, in these words:
	"We may differ upon some measures of public policy.  We may, as partisans, be 
Republicans and Democrats.  But there is one particular in which we will not differ—in our 
biding love for Iowa and her people, we are one.  And my desire is, we may so meet our 
joint responsibilities that, in the great realm of the future, Iowa, in her character of 
patriotism, virtue and intelligence, will stand as an exemplar in a sisterhood of states, the 
number of which no prophet may to-day predict; all constituting one nation, one sovereign 
nationality, with one governing civilization, one inspiring history, one alluring hope, one 
foredated future destiny, and one eternal weight of earthly glory."
	In 1873 Governor Carpenter became the nominee of the Republican part of Iowa for a 
second term.  He was re-elected October 13, 1873, and inaugurated on the 27th of January, 
1874.
	During his entire life, Mr. Carpenter has been devoted to the principles of reform and 
the best interest of all classes of citizens who, by adoption pr by birth-right, are entitled to a 
home upon our soil and the protection of out laws, under the great charter of "Life, Liberty, 
and the Pursuit of Happiness."  In an address in 1852, he took advanced views upon the 
leading subjects of public interest.  He had already laid the foundation for that love of 
freedom which afterwards found an ample field of labor with the Republican party.  There 
was nothing chimerical in his views.  He looked at every strata of human society, and from 
the wants of the masses, wisely devined duty and prophesied destiny.  He would have the 
people of a free republic educated in the spirit of the civilization of the age.  Instead of 
cultivating a taste for a species of literature tending directly to degrade the mind and deprave 
the heart, thereby leading back to a state of superstition and consequent barbarism; he would 
cultivate principles of temperance, industry and economy in every youthful mind, as the 
indispensable ingredients of good citizens, or subjects upon whose banner will be inscribed 
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.
	Thus early Mr. Carpenter saw the destined tendency of our American institutions, and 
the advancing civilization of the age.  He saw it in the peace congress whose deliberations 
have made the Rhine thrice immortal.  He saw it in the prospective railway which he 
believed would one day unite the shores of the Atlantic with that of the Pacific—a fact 
realized by the construction of the great continental railway—completed and carrying the 
commerce of the world a a date only eighteen years removed from the day of prophetic 
vision.
	It was thus early that he began to study of the wants of the world, and with what c 
clearness and directness may be seen by the correctness of his vision, and the 
accomplishment of what he considered and inevitable necessity.
	Thus growing up into manhood, and passing onward in the rugged pathway of time, 
disciplined in political economy and civil ethics in the stern school of experience, he is 
prepared to meet every emergency with a steady and a ready and; to bring order out of 
discord and insure harmony and prosperity to the land.
Governor Carpenter's services as public speaker and orator, on various occasions, have been 
widely sought after and highly appreciated.  Among his earlier efforts in this direction, his 
oration at Fort Dodge, on the 4th of July, 1865, is an example.  He also delivered an able 4th 
of July oration at Dexter, Iowa, in 1871.  His agricultural addresses, and those before 
colleges and literary institutions, have been numerous, and rank among the best production 
of the kind in Iowa.
	On the 4th f July, 1872, he delivered an oration at Spencer, Iowa in which he 
elucidated one of the most vital questions relating to education—showing in a concise and 
forcible manner that men are not the product of legislation, but of voluntary achievement, 
labor and self-culture.  What we are, what we may be, and what will be our future, depend 
more upon ourselves than upon statutory enactment or fundamental law.  After reviewing the 
tendency to depend upon legislation rather than upon personal exertion, to exalt the state at 
the expense of the individual, and to think that whatever is wrong in the social compact may 
find its remedy in the pages of the statute book, he says:  "The idea obtains credence almost 
everywhere, that man, with his endowments for good or evil, is the result of the structure of 
certain national institutions, in disregard of the truer theory that national institutions assume 
their character from the man."  With this as the key note of his grand discourse, he argues for 
and education that shall bring out the highest qualities of manhood, and shows that these 
qualities being the groundwork in man, will naturally shape themselves into wise and 
beneficent legislation, and by the foundation of the greatness and prosperity of the state.  
The discourse is an able and thoughtful production, and we regret that our space will not 
allow us to give fuller extracts from it.
	He delivered an eloquent oration at Muscatine on Decoration Day, May, 1873.  We 
can not forbear quoting the closing paragraph of this noble discourse.
	"These noble men have now been relieved from duty, having passed over the river 
into the great 'camp'  of the 'All Hail Hereafter,' and a new detail has been ordered.  To-day 
WE are on duty.  Are our arms as brightly burnished as were those of our predecessors?  Are 
we as sleepless to the approach of danger as the relief whose posts we have come to occupy?  
The countersign to-day is 'FIDELITY!'  If any prowler about the lines passet the post we 
profess to hold, or steps across the beat our feet are supposed to tread, who has not this 
countersign, we are responsible for the detrimens which thereby may come to the republic.  
It is for us to HALT the suspected, and require them to 'MARK TIME,' until better men are 
signaled to the front.  Doing this, and bearing in our hearts the example of those whose 
memory we to-day embalm, it is not too much to hope that the day will come again when the 
public service will exemplify an honor and an integrity which will rise into the atmosphere 
of chivalry."
	The Kansas Commonwealth speaks of this oration and its author in the following 
language, making copious extracts from the address:
	"In all the country there is no more ardent and consistent republican, no man of better 
impulses and stricter integrity, than Cyrus C. Carpenter, present Governor of our  sister state 
of Iowa.  He has an admirable way, too, of treating political topics in a candid, logical and 
pointed style.  Hence his public utterances are entitled to and always command general 
attention.
	"On Decoration Day Governor Carpenter delivered an eloquent, well timed oration at 
Muscatine—and oration which gives expression, with painful plainness, to the dominant 
feeling concerning our political affairs.  It may, indeed, be fairly taken as a presentation, in a 
fair, and truthful, and forcible manner, of the new issues which are coming up for 
adjustment, and which can not safely be ignored or put aside."
	After quoting the Governor's oration quite extensively, the editor adds:
	"These exalted sentiments are not the hypocritical mouthings of a soured politician, or 
an uncaught corruptionist who seeks to conceal his own shortcomings under and energetic 
outburst of indignation 'on general principles.'  Governor Carpenter is a man whose 
character is above reproach, whose services to his state and to the country have been 
conspicuously straightforward and unselfish, and who illustrates in his daily walk and 
conduct the truths which he urges upon the country in his public utterances.  When such a 
man sounds the alarm, it is time to stop and listen; and the recommendations which he feels 
it incumbent upon him to offer, merit the close and thoughtful attention of all good citizens.'
	On the subjecct of cheap transporation Governor Carpenter gave his views very 
elaborately in an able address before the State Agricultural Society at Des Moines, in 1873.  
He said of the exorbitant rates of transporting grain to market; 'This is the skelton in every 
Western farmer's corn crib."
	The Inter-Ocean published in full Governor Carpenter's speech delivered at Cedar 
Rapids at the opening of the campaign of 1873, with the following editorial comments:
	"It will impress the people of all parties who may read it, with confidence both in his 
judgment and integrity.  He has been a citizen of Iowa for nearly twenty years; discharged 
the duties of important civil trusts before his accession to the Governorship; but the man, 
woman or child does not live who can truthfully charge him with dishonesty, or collusion 
with dishonesty.  He ia a plain, practical, non-assumptive man of the people, who has won 
his way to the proud position he occupied by sheer merit, and he will not only be re-elected 
by a larger majority than he received two years ago, but his adminstration will stand out all 
the brighter by reason of the calumny which petty demagogues have attempted to force upon 
him."
	The following is front the Dubuque Daily Times of July 1, 1973, immediately after the 
convention re-nominating Governor Carpenter:
	Governor Carpenter was re-nominated by acclamation, a fitting indorsement of an 
enlightened and faithful executive.  No man comes in contact with C. C. Carpenter without 
appreciating the fact that he is one of the ablest men, and one of the most honest and pure 
minded and unselfish officers, we have ever had in the State.  Plain, unassuming, modest to a 
fault, he has won his public position more through the enthusiasm of his friends, than by any 
personal efforts or desires of his own.  But he everywhere, and at all times, and upon all 
occasions, has shown how fully the confidence of his friends is justified—how equal he is in 
resources to every position—how great a reserve force there is in him, acutely to observe, 
broadly and accurately to measure, honestly to do, and eloquently to enforce and defend.
Among the first to appreciate the importance of the issues.  He had enough of the prescience 
of statesmanship to appreciate the full significance of the struggle, and enough of sympathy 
with the people to attach himself early to their cause.  No Executive of any other State has 
exceeded him in efforts and earnestness in the discussion and advancement of measures 
looking to the relief of the country from transportation evils; none have sought more 
sincerely to turn the public thought to the practical means of securing such end.  And it is 
evident that whatever enlightened executive judgment can do to secure for the farmers of 
Iowa cheap freight to and from the seaboard, will be done by governor Carpenter in the 
future as in the past.  As to his past official course, there is no taint of dishonesty or neglect."
	In 1879, Governor Carpenter prepared a convenient little volume, entitled "Instruction 
to County Surveyors," in compliance with Chapter 183 of the acts of the thirteenth General 
Assembly.  This work was published by the authority of the State, and has been found a 
valuable compendium of the laws and decisions relating to County Surveyors and their 
duties.  It is full of minute details, showing careful research and pains in its preparation, and 
is as full and complete a summary of instruction as could be desired on the subjects of which 
it treats.