From his numerous official positions, and the ability with which they have been filled, Cyrus C. Carpenter, the eighth Governor of the State of Iowa, deserves to be remembered as one of Iowa’s foremost men. He is a native of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, and was born November 24, 1829. His parents were Asahel and Amanda M. (Thayer) Carpenter, both of whom died before he was twelve years old. His grandfather, John Carpenter, was one of nine young men who, in 1789, left Attleborough, Massachusetts, for the purpose of finding a home in the “new country.” After various vicissitudes they located upon the spot which they called Harford, in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the township in which Cyrus was born. This location at that time was far from any other settlement, Wilkesbarre, in Wyoming Valley, near the scene of the celebrated Indian massacre, being among the nearest, though fifty miles away.

     Cyrus attended a common school three or four months in a year until 1846, then taught winters and worked on a farm summers for three or four years, and with the money thus raised paid his expenses for several month at the academy which had been established in his native town. After leaving this institution, in 1852, he started westward; halted at Johnstown, Licking County, Ohio; taught there a year and a half, and with his funds thus replenished he came to Iowa, loitering some on the way, and reaching Des Moines in June, 1854. A few days later he started on foot up the Des Moines Valley, and found his way to Fort Dodge, eighty miles northwest of Des Moines, from which place the soldiers had moved the previous spring to Fort Ridgely, Minnesota.

     He now had but a single half dollar in his pocket. He frankly told the landlord of his straightened circumstances, offering to do any kind of labor until something should “turn up.” On the evening of his arrival he heard a Government contractor state that his chief surveyor had left him and that he was going out to find another. Young Carpenter at once offered his services. To the inquiry whether he was a surveyor, he answered that he understood the theory of surveying, but had had not experience in the field. His services were promptly accepted, with a promise of steady employment if he were found competent. The next morning he met the party and took command. When the first week’s work was done he went to Fort Dodge to replenish his wardrobe. As he left, some of the men remarked that that was the last that would be seen of him. He was then of a slight build, jaded and torn by hard work, and when he left the camp, so utterly tired out it is not surprising that the men who were inured to out-door life thought him completely used up. But they did not know their man. With the few dollars which he had earned, he supplied himself with comfortable clothing, went back to his work on Monday morning and continued it till the contract was completed.

     The next winter he taught the first school opened in Fort Dodge, and from that date his general success was assured. For the first two years he was employed much of the time by persons having contracts for surveying Government lands. He was thus naturally led into the land business, and from the autumn of 1855, when the Land Office was established at Fort Dodge, much of his time was devoted to surveying, selecting land for buyers, tax-paying for foreign owners, and in short a general land agency. During this period he devoted such time as he could spare to reading law, with the view of eventually entering the profession.

     Soon after the civil war commenced he entered the army, and before going into the field was commissioned as Captain in the staff department, and served over three years, attaining the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and being mustered out as brevet Colonel.

     He has served his State in numerous civil capacities. He was elected Surveyor of Webster County in the spring of 1856, and the next year was elected a Representative to the General Assembly, and served in the first session of that body held at Des Moines. He was elected Register of the State Land Office in 1866, re-elected in 1868, and held the office four years, declining to be a candidate for renomination.

     He was elected Governor of Iowa in 1871, and was inaugurated January 11, 1872. He was re-elected two years later, and served until January 13, 1874. He made an able and popular executive. In his first inaugural address, delivered January 11, 1872, he made a strong plea for the State University, and especially its normal department, for the agricultural college, and for whatever would advance the material progress and prosperity of the people, urging in particular the introduction of more manufactories.

     At the expiration of his second term as Governor Mr. Carpenter was appointed, without his previous knowledge, Second Comptroller of the United State Treasury, and resigned after holding that office about fifteen months. He was influenced to take this step at that time because another bureau officer was to be dismissed, as the head of the department held that Iowa had more heads of bureaus than she was entitled to, and his resigning an office of a higher grade saved a man who deserved to remain in Government employ.

     He was in the forty-seventh Congress from 1881 to 1883, and represented Webster County in the twentieth General Assembly. He is now leading the life of a private citizen at Fort Dodge, his chief employment being the carrying on of a farm. He is not rich, which is a striking commentary on his long official service. He has led a pure and upright life.

     He has been a Republican since the organization of that party. In religious matters he is orthodox.

     He was married in March, 1864, to Miss Susan C. Burkholder, of Fort Dodge. They have no children, but have reared from childhood a niece of Mrs. Carpenter, Miss Fannie Burkholder.

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