Gen. Carmi W. Babcock, president of the first free state council of 1857-58, a leading citizen of Lawrence and a prominent contractor in the building of several noted structures of the state, was born in Franklin County, Vermont, April 21, 1830. In 1850, after teaching for a time, he moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he read law and was admitted to the bar. He arrived at Lawrence in September, 1854, and finding that everything was too unsettled to make the practice of the law reliable he engaged in the real estate business. In 1857 he established a bank, only to see it swept away by the panic of that year. He received his appointment as the first postmaster of Lawrence February 1, 1855, but was removed in 1857 to make way for a pro slavery man. He was also the second mayor of Lawrence; a member of the Committee on Resolutions at the convention of National Democracy, which assembled in June, 1855, and a member of the executive committee of the Free State convention held at Grasshopper Falls August 26, 1857. In 1869 he was appointed surveyor general of Kansas, holding the office for two terms, or until its discontinuance. He was one of the builders of the great bridge across the Kaw at Lawrence, completed in December, 1863, and, as a member of the firm of Bogert & Babcoek, completed the east wing of the state house. In November, 1871, he became one of the incorporators of the Kansas Magazine Company. His death occurred at St. Louis October 22, 1889.
