Cyrus Clay Carpenter (24 November 1829-29 May 1898) was the Republcian Governor of Iowa from 11 January 1872 to 13 January 1876 (succeeding Samuel Merrill and preceding Samuel J. Kirkwood) and a member of the US House of Representatives (R-IO 9) from 4 March 1879 to 3 March 1883 (succeeding S. Addison Oliver and preceding William H.M. Pusey).
Biography[]
Cyrus Clay Carpenter was born in Harford Township, Pennsylvania in 1829, and he moved to Fort Dodge, Iowa in 1854 to work as a teacher and surveyor. Carpenter served as Webster County surveyor in 1856 before joining the relief expedition sent to relieve the settlers of Spirit Lake, Iowa from the hostile Sioux after the Spirit Lake massacre. Carpenter went on to serve in the Union Army during the American Civil War, rising to colonel and the staffs of Generals William Rosecrans, Grenville M. Dodge, and John A. Logan. After the war, Carpenter served as registrar of the state land office from 1866 to 1868, as Governor from 1872 to 1876, as Second Comptroller of the Treasury of the United States from 1876 to 1877, as Railroad Commissioner of Iowa in 1878, in the US House of Representatives from 1879 to 1883, as a state legislator from 1884 to 1886, and as postmaster of Fort Dodge from 1889 to 1893. He died in Fort Dodge in 1898.