Mendocino County Biographies

A. O. Carpenter

Transcribed by: Pat Howard

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


	Was born in Townshend, Vermont, November 28, 1836, where he 
resided until August, 1851, attending district school summer and winter. In that 
year he entered the office of his step-father, George W. Nichols, Proprietor of 
the Windham county Democrat; where he remained until November, 1854, and then 
returned to Townshend for a four months� course in the Leland Seminary. In the 
summer of 1855, he went to Meriden, Connecticut, and worked a few weeks with 
Othniel Ives, an uncle, and thence to Kansas with the fourth party from the 
East, under the immediate charge of Governor Robinson. Teaming and chopping wood 
filled in the time until the survey of Topeka was made, our subject carrying the 
chain over Kansas� future capital. When the Herald of Freedom was inaugurated, 
young Carpenter helped to start the paper, setting the first type in the State; 
again assisting in the founding of another paper, the Free State, in the winter 
of 1855 and 1856. In February, 1856, he removed to Osawatomie, and built a 
log-house, and superintended a stock of goods for a short time for Samuel Geer. 
In May of that year, he joined other relatives and made a settlement on Ottawa 
creek, near Prairie City, where he remained until May 27, 1857, taking an active 
part in repelling border raids, and being wounded at the battle of Black Jack, 
June 2, 1856. In May, 1857, in company with his father-in-law, Thomas McCowen 
and family, and Samuel Mewhinney and family, he started for California, arriving 
at Nevada early in November. Mining at Selby Flat, occupied his attention until 
the spring of 1858, when he purchased and removed to Hill�s ranch, near Grass 
Valley. Ranching, teaming, and type-setting in the Telegraph office, furnished 
sufficient employment for his active disposition until 1859, when he was 
appointed Road Overseer, then being barely twenty-one years of age. Selling his 
ranch and resigning his office in November, 1859, he moved to Mendocino county, 
settling in Potter valley, where he still retains a citizenship in spirit, and a 
home in fact, in the shape of a fine farm of one hundred and ninety acres. In 
1860, he again assisted in the founding of a newspaper, the Herald, published at 
Ukiah by E. R. Budd, in which paper he purchased an interest in the spring of 
1862. Selling out to his partner in 1864, Mr. Carpenter went to San Francisco 
and entered the employ of Dewey & Co., assuming the foremanship of the office of 
the Mining and Scientific Press. Coming back to Mendocino county in February, 
1865, on a visit to his family, he was surprised at receiving unsought the 
appointment of United States Assistant Assessor from the Revenue department. 
After urgent entreaty, only, the office was accepted, and Mr. Carpenter was 
sworn in at Santa Rosa, April 13th, on the same day receiving word of the fall 
of Richmond. Staging to Cloverdale, he was compelled by change of time of the 
Ukiah stage, to wait there three days for that conveyance, or seek other modes 
of transportation. With his mountain training, walker�s train seemed the 
quickest way over bad roads, and easier than riding and packing a rail as was 
necessary between Santa Rosa and Cloverdale. He arrived in Ukiah with the news 
of the fall of Richmond, two days ahead of the mail, and assumed the duties of 
the office, which he has continued to discharge, first as assistant Assessor, 
and afterwards as Deputy Collector through five successive administrations, 
until the present date. Making Potter valley his home, he found time in the 
interim of official duties to improve two farms, hauling the fencing and lumber 
eighteen miles, sleeping over night with his teams, and driving the pickets amid 
the winter�s rains. Republican though he was, and resident in a strong 
Democratic precinct, he was twice elected Road Overseer, and only resigned the 
position in 1869, to remove to Ukiah, where he built a [copy too light to read] 
and photograph gallery, which latter profession he continued to date. During 
1862-3, he was also foreman of the Constitutional Democrat, published in Ukiah. 
In 1872, he was appointed Deputy County Assessor under E. Donohoe, having 
previously served part of two years under S. W. Haskett in the same capacity, 
continuing to act in this capacity two years, he declined the re-appointment in 
1873, and 1874 went to San Francisco and took charge of the mechanical 
department of the Daily Fair Press, published in the Mechanics� Institute Fair, 
during August and September, by Dewey & Co. In 1876, he again took charge of the 
same publication, both editorial and mechanical, as also in 1877 and 1878. 
Returning to Ukiah in September, 1874, he entered the office of County Recorder 
Denman, as deputy, which he held for two years. In 1875, and again in 1876, he 
was appointed Road Overseer of Ukiah district. In 1877, he was elected the first 
Marshal of Ukiah, then incorporated, declining a re-election the following year. 
In January, 1879, he purchased the Ukiah City Press, and assumed once more the 
editorial tripod, and in February associating with Charles S. Paine, formerly of 
the Petaluma Argus, and more lately on the San Francisco Evening Post. Of an 
active, restless disposition, Mr. Carpenter has constantly in hand multifarious 
business interests, and has earned the commendation of all in the discharge of 
his public and private duties, of which not near all can be mentioned in this 
brief sketch. He was married Christmas, 1856, Miss Helen McCowen, in Kansas, and 
an interesting and talented group of four children bear witness to a mother�s 
earnest care and cultivation: May, born March 15, 1858; Grant and Grace, born 
February 21, 1865; Frank L., born November 8, 1870.
 
SOURCE: History of Mendocino County, California - San Francisco, Cal. Alley, 
Bowen & Co., Publishers. 1880 Pp. 632 - 634