Matthew Hale Carpenter (originally named Decatur Merrit Hammond Carpenter), lawyer and U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, was born in Moretown, Washington County, Vermont on December 22, 1824, the son of Ira and Esther Ann Carpenter. At age eleven, after the death of his mother, young Carpenter was sent to live with his father's friend, Paul Dillingham of Waterbury, Vermont. Dillingham, who was later to become governor of Vermont and then a United States Senator, helped Carpenter obtain a cadetship at West Point in 1843. After two years, however, Carpenter was forced to leave the Academy because of poor eyesight.
Under the instruction of Dillingham and Rufus Choate, Carpenter then began the study of law and he was eventually admitted to the bar in Vermont and in Massachusetts. In 1848, he started a private practice in Beloit, Wisconsin. During the next two years Carpenter suffered from total blindness and gave up his law practice. When his eyesight returned, he again took up the law and about this time changed his forenames to Matthew Hale. In 1852 he was elected to the post of district attorney for Rock County, Wisconsin. Three years later he married Caroline Dillingham, Paul Dillingham's youngest daughter. They had two children, Lillian and Paul Dillingham Carpenter. Returning to the private practice of law after his term expired as district attorney, Carpenter gained statewide attention as one of the attorneys for William A. Barstow in the disputed gubernatorial election of 1855.
Moving to Milwaukee in 1856, Carpenter rose in Democratic and legal circles. He supported Douglas in the presidential election of 1860, but with the Civil War he became a “war Democrat” and joined the Republican Party.
He was chosen by the Republican State Legislature to run for the United States Senate and was elected in 1869 and 1879 but defeated in 1874. In his two Senate terms, Carpenter identified himself with the radical supporters of President Grant. His insistence on legalism and seeming lack of deep-rooted loyalties, however, gave political ammunition to his enemies who attempted to make him the symbol of reconstruction corruption. This tactic was successful in Carpenter's defeat in 1874 yet its effects were limited, and he was reelected in 1879 and served in the Senate until his death.
Matthew Hale Carpenter's legal career was no less successful than his political life. He argued his first Supreme Court case in 1862. He acquired national status as a lawyer in the McArdle case (1869) and was acknowledged to be the legal advocate for reconstruction policies. His other well-known cases of national significance included the Slaughterhouse cases (1873), the defense of Secretary of War William K. Belknap in the impeachment proceeding of 1876, and his retention by the Democrats in 1877 to present the case of presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden to the electoral commission investigating the disputed election of 1876.
Carpenter died on February 24, 1881 in Washington, D.C.
Paul Dillingham Carpenter , lawyer and county judge, son of Matthew Hale and Caroline Dillingham Carpenter, was born in Milwaukee on January 26, 1867 and was educated in public and private schools in Milwaukee and Washington D.C. He attended Columbia Law School and was admitted to the Wisconsin Bar in 1891. In November 1891 he married Emma Falk, of a prominent Milwaukee family. They had three children: Paul Vincent, Matthew Aloysius, and Agnes Mary.
Running on the Democratic ticket, Carpenter was elected in 1901 and again in 1905 as county judge for Milwaukee County. He retired in 1910. A convert to the Roman Catholic Church, Mr. Carpenter was an outspoken defender of his religious beliefs and freedoms. A member of the Knights of Columbus he served at one time as grand knight of the Milwaukee Council. He also held membership in the Athletic Club and the Milwaukee Yacht Club and belonged to both the Wisconsin and the American Bar Associations.
After he retired as county judge, Carpenter practiced law until his death on December 26, 1932 in Milwaukee.
