El
Dorado County
Biographies
HON. GIDEON J. CARPENTER
The subject of this biographical
sketch is a native of Harford, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, where he was
born May 4, 1823. His grandparents were
pioneers of his native county and state, as his remoter ancestors were of the
Old Bay state, where the first Carpenter’s landed in 1636 and the first of the
Thayer’s, his maternal ancestors, in 1638.
His grandparents were among the first settlers of his native town, where
Asahel Carpenter and Amanda Malvina Thayer, were married May 25, 1822. They had
five sons,--Gideon Judd, Frederick, Cyrus Clay, John and Emmett,--and one
daughter, the youngest of the family and named for her mother, who died when a
mere child. Of the family the subject of
this sketch, Frederick and Emmett, are the sole
survivors.
Of the Carpenter’s in recent
history, Senator Matt Carpenter, of Wisconsin, and Cyrus Clay, brother of our
Californian, have been most conspicuous. The last named, Colonel C. C. Carpenter,
having settled in Iowa, was first on the staff of General Dodge and later on
that of General Logan, on Sherman’s magnificent march through the Confederacy
and around to Washington, whence he returned to Iowa, of which state he was
afterward twice governor and twice, a representative in congress. Of the Thayer tribe, on the maternal side,
William H. Seward was the chieftain, to say nothing of many prominent men in
all the higher walks of life.
From this glance at his breed and
brood, it will be seen that the subject of our sketch had in him the elements
of his epoch and characteristics. His
career was also influenced by early frontier experience. In 1835 his father moved in a two-horse
wagon, over corduroy roads, to Warren County, Indiana. Here, while his father followed land
surveying, he worked on a little backwoods farm, in sight of the Wabash
River. At the end of six years, saddened
by the loss of his mother and brother John, the rest of the family returned to
Harford, where two years later his father and sister died. Again among friends and relatives who were
the founders of Franklin Academy, he was, at intervals for eight years, a
student at that institution. During his
academic term he was a fellow student of H. H. McKune and Amos Adams, before
whom, as district judges of California, he afterward practiced. His reading of law under a retired professor
was suspended in 1849, when he again determined to try his fortunes in the
west. This time Chicago was his
objective point, but California was his unseen destination. With his three comrades and a good outfit, he
spent the summer of 1850 on the plains with the overland pioneers of that year;
and a few days before the admission of California into the Union he pitched his
tent under the tall pines which then overshadowed Georgetown, minus pretty much
all the rest of his outfit.
The end of a long and tiresome
journey was the beginning of his life work in the paradise of miners, where
every disappointment had in it the pleasures of hope and golden visions of
fortunes yet to be made. The next five
years, excepting only the summer of 1854, he devoted all his energies to placer
and river mining. Beginning at
Greenwood, his mining career ended at Big Bar, on the middle fork of the
American River, where he organized and engineered the most daring and expensive
fluming operation ever undertaken on that river. By a flume over two miles in length, fifteen
feet wide and four feet deep, the river from Volcano to Big Bar was completely
drained and made to run the wheels and pumps by which it was done. Eyewitnesses of this achievement, and of his
discovery and operations on the Big Crevice at Big Bar, are still living in
Placerville. When he left the mines for
other occupations he owed nothing, and but for the festivities of a miner’s
life in the ’50 they would have been largely indebted to him.
In 1854 the gayeties of mining were
varied by a stumping campaign, in which, with no colleague and few followers,
he confronted the fierce and vindictive conspiracy against David C.
Broderick. It was a campaign of bitter
antagonisms, two years in advance of the senatorial election, in view of which
he had been nominated by the Anti-Gwin Democracy for the State Senate. Thus to lead the clansmen of Broderick, in a
losing combat for a desired future reprisal, was a paradox of self-sacrifice not
to be declined. The campaign was made
for all that was in it, and with the result anticipated. Two years later the defeated leader of a
forlorn hope was nominated by the united Democracy and elected to the State
Senate by a signal majority. By the following
legislature of 1856-7, the great northern leader, who was afterward murdered
because he was opposed to slavery, was triumphantly elected to the United
States Senate. In the Democratic caucus
by which he was chosen his champion from the then Empire county
of the state had the honor of being designated by himself to put him in
nomination for the long term. For this
purpose the correct order of nominations was reversed and the short term
reserved to be finally conferred on William M. Gwin, by the advice and consent
of his successful opponent, who had too much respect for the determined
opposition of his El Dorado friend to ask of him the mistaken concession to a
shrewd and unscrupulous foe,--a concession for which the only reward of D. C.
Broderick was a foul and successful plot against his life.
Such was the fierce and implacable
combat in which the subject of this biography won his spurs and developed his
capacity for fighting. It seems to have
forecast his subsequent career. But
having no predilection for legislative positions, which were often at his
command, after his senatorial term he returned to the scene of his mining
ventures. In 1860 he canvassed and voted
for Douglas, who had a plurality in the county.
In 1862 he was elected, as a pronounced Union Democrat, to the office of
county clerk. In 1864 he canvassed and
voted for Lincoln and was an uncompromising supporter of his administration
until the last drum beat of the Civil War, when he again espoused the cause of
Jeffersonian Democracy, against a Republican majority of the county of fifteen
hundred, flushed with the victories which he had helped to win. Only two years later, in 1867, he was
nominated by the Democracy for district attorney and was elected by a handsome
majority. Twice re-elected by increased
majorities, in the fall of 1874, three months before the expiration of his
third term, he resigned the office to accept the more difficult service of
standing between his county and its bondholders in the next assembly, to which
he was nominated by his party and elected without a canvass. Being one of a large Democratic majority in
that house, in a contest with Judge Archer, of San Jose, he was chosen for
Speaker. Between him and all the members
of the assembly, including Joseph McKenna, then the leader of the Republican
minority, now a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, the courtesies of
personal and official intercourse ripened into many life-long friendships. During the entire session no scene of
disorder lasted a minute and not a single successful appeal was taken from his
parliamentary rulings; and, judging from the press comments of the times,
without distinction of party, he not only accomplished the object of his
election but more than justified his choice as Speaker.
At the close of the session with his
legislative record he returned to Placerville, where on the following 4th
of July he delivered the Centennial oration.
The same year, while engaged in the practice of his profession, against
his earnest protest, he was impressed into a nomination for congress against
Hon. Frank Page and a standing Republican majority of more than five thousand
in his district. After a formal canvass
and a foregone defeat, he once more returned to his home and profession in
Placerville. Two years later, in 1878,
without solicitation or reference, he was appointed by his friend, Governor
Irwin, to the responsible office of Supreme Court Reporter, and in the ensuing
two years issued Volumes 52 and 53 in the series of California Reports. But when the Kearney constitution was adopted
the report’s salary was reduced from six to two thousand dollars and he had no
further use of the office. He returned
to the practice of law in his own city and county, both of which had voted
against the Sand Lot craze.
But he was again drawn from his
retirement when, in 1879, another disastrous sand-storm broke over his party
and state. For him there was the new
constitution, with its portentous public and private consequences, the irony of
fate. Going back to its origin in the
assembly of which he was the Speaker, there is a passage of unwritten history,
hitherto known to but few even of his personal friends. As explained by himself, the legislature at
the last previous session had passed and submitted to the people of the state
an act providing for a convention to revise the constitution. From the returns of the general election, to
which it was referred, it was found to have received only a majority of votes
on that measure and not of all the votes cast in that election, as in his
opinion required. His judgment was that
of the assembly, a majority of which held, against the dissenting opinion of
John R. McConnell, a very able but eccentric lawyer, who was chairman of the
Judiciary Committee, that no call for a convention had been authorized. To insure this result the Speaker had
exercised his privilege as an assemblyman.
Later on in the session he was taken into the confidence of his friend
McConnell, who complained that after putting him in a responsible position he
had gone aside from his office and out of his way to beat a known hobby of a
devoted friend. He was also informed by
the irrepressible advocate of a constitutional convention, that he was about to
introduce his hobby again, and to have it beaten by the Speaker would break his
heart. Thus assailed on his
non-combative side, reserving to himself the right to vote against a measure
that seemed to have but few supporters, he consented to keep out of its discussion. For this inconsiderate promise and the
unexpected result, he has never forgiven himself; and for its ultimate
consequences, his repentant friend went down with sorrow to his grave.
To man the piratical commissions
decried by its framers and created by the marvelous new constitution, was the
first order of business. Among them the
railroad commission was freighted with the most inviting rewards for
anti-railroad reformers, who should pose as impartial judges. It was the most tempting prize in the
political raffle of 1879,--memorable for the fusion of Kearney sand-lotters
with the new constitution party. The
fusion candidates for the coveted office of Railroad Commissioner had voted for
its creation and for their own eligibility as first-termers, while members of the
convention. Against such a union of
forces and such titles to public preference and amazement, the subject of this
narrative was made once more an emergency candidate of the undefiled Democracy
of his district, which, to the surprise of friend and foe, gave him nearly
fifteen thousand votes.
In proportion to the population
polled, it was the largest Democratic vote received by any candidate for any
office, state or district, in that crucial and memorable campaign. For his party it was an auspicious result and
converted uncompromising defeat into ultimate success; and four years later the
man who had from the first confronted and denounced the new constitution as a
shabby fraud on all concerned was renominated for Railroad Commissioner by the
party which he had thrice served as a forlorn hope in its direst need, and was
elected by the normal Democratic majority!
As was to have been expected, he was followed through the canvass and
into his office by venal and vindictive hatred, inspired by past antagonisms
and resulting disappointments. But,
trammeled by no electioneering pledges or other prejudgment, as president of
the Railroad Commission, which up to that time had been the tin horn and sport
of officious and intermeddling agitators, he incurred their renewed enmity by
dispensing with their patriotic services.
Thus discarding all sinister and blackmailing influences of newspapers
and demagogues, he made the powers, duties, facts, figures and constitutional
finalities of his office the basis and burden of its administration. In doing so he substituted settled rules of
evidence and of judicial fairness for the irresponsible clamor of shysters, and
panders, whether on or off the commission, to public prejudice against railroad
or other legitimate interests, subject to its jurisdiction and supervision.
Thus alone were the rulings, orders
and decision of a quasi-judicial tribunal, made in fact what they were in
contemplation and presumption of law,--“just and reasonable.” And in this connection it may also be said
that the official record of the commission during his term of office is chiefly
his in conception and execution; and he has lived to see much, if not all of
it, endorsed by his successors in office; and so far as controverted in
analogous cases, uniformly sanctioned by judicial decisions.
That a man whose life has been so
full of exceptional situations and exacting episodes has after all a sunny soul
and social side, is his greatest merit.
On him, therefore, the best things remain to be said. In 1857, while he was in the State Senate, he
was married to Miss Mary A. Whitney, then recently from her paternal home in
Wheelock, Vermont. With him she has
shared and survived the vicissitudes of his busy career. Of their two sons, Prentiss is married and
has a life sketch in this book; and Galusha resides with his parents, as does
their daughter, Mollie, who is a gifted and cultivated musician.
At intervals for many years, subject
to overruling circumstances, the paternal head of the family made the storm of
shelter a shelter and was much away from home.
But in recent years, as editor and proprietor of “The Mountain
Democrat,” the oldest and best equipped journal in El Dorado County and one of
the three oldest in the state, he has devoted himself to his editorial and
private affairs. Besides his paper he
has a handsome residence in Placerville and a small suburban ranch. As a man and politician, friend and foe, his
fearless courage of settled convictions and self-reliant staying qualities,
inspired by clear conceptions of right and wrong, have been the dominant and
decisive characteristics of his long and eventful life.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 88-93. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden
Nugget Library's El Dorado County Biographies