Thomas Carmichael

Thomas Carmichael (October 12, 1830 – October 13, 1902) was an Irish-American lumberman and politician from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, who spent four discontinuous terms as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly. Background Carmichael was born in Kings County, Ireland on Oct. 12,1830 and was educated in the Irish National Schools. He emigrated to the United States in 1851, becoming a lumberman and settling for some time in Unadilla, New York, before moving in 1857 to Wisconsin, and eventually settling in Eau Claire. Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, he helped fund a company for the 17th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, but they were not organized in time to enlist in the 17th. He and the 35 men he had enlisted left for St. Louis, where they joined the 10th Wisconsin Light Artillery Battery, with Carmichael becoming a private. He took part in sieges and battles at Corinth, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and several minor battles in which the Army of the Cumberland was involved up to the surrender of Chattanooga. He was promoted to 1st Lieutenant in the newly-organized 37th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and served on recruiting and other detached service until he was discharged in October 1864, due to an illness (unspecified) from which he never fully recovered. Public office Upon the 1872 organization of the City of Eau Claire, Carmichael became alderman for his Ward; he also served on the Eau Claire County Board of Supervisors. He was a delegate to the 1873 Democratic state convention, and was elected that year to the Assembly's Eau Claire County seat as a member of the Liberal Reform Party (a short-lived coalition of Democrats, reform and Liberal Republicans, and Grangers which secured the election of one Governor of Wisconsin, as well as electing a number of state legislators), defeating Republican William P. Bartlett with 1,065 votes to 851 for Bartlett. He was assigned to the standing committees on lumber and manufactures; and on the militia. He did not run for re-election, and was replaced the next year by Republican Jonathan G. Callahan.