Charles W. Upham | |
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 6th district | |
| In office March 4, 1853 – March 3, 1855 | |
| Preceded by | George T. Davis |
| Succeeded by | Timothy Davis |
| 7th Mayor of Salem, Massachusetts | |
| In office 1852–1853 | |
| Preceded by | David Pingree |
| Succeeded by | Asahel Huntington |
| Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives for Essex | |
| In office 1849–1849 | |
| In office 1859–1860 | |
| President of the Massachusetts Senate | |
| In office 1857–1858 | |
| Preceded by | Elihu C. Baker |
| Succeeded by | Charles A. Phelps |
| Member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1853 | |
| In office 1853–1853 | |
| Member of the Massachusetts Senate for Essex | |
| In office 1850–1850 | |
| In office 1857–1858 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Charles Wentworth Upham May 4, 1802 Saint John, New Brunswick Colony, British Canada |
| Died | June 15, 1875 (aged 73) Salem, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Nationality | Canadian, American |
| Political party | Whig, Free Soil, Republican |
| Spouse | Ann Susan Holmes |
| Signature |  |
Charles Wentworth Upham (May 4, 1802 – June 15, 1875) was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts. Upham was also a member, and President of the Massachusetts State Senate, the 7th Mayor of Salem, Massachusetts, and twice a member of the Massachusetts State House of Representatives. Upham was the cousin of George Baxter Upham and Jabez Upham. Upham was later a historian of Salem and the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 when he lived there.
Charles Wentworth Upham was born in Saint John in the New Brunswick Colony of British Canada on May 4, 1802 to Col. Joshua Upham, Supreme Court Justice of New Brunswick, and his second wife Mary Chandler. Joshua Upham was born in Brookfield, MA in 1741 and died in England in 1808.
Charles W. Upham married Ann Susan Holmes on March 29, 1826. She was the daughter of Rev. Abiel Holmes and Sarah Oliver Wendell. Ann was the sister of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Charles and Ann had 15 children all born in Salem, Massachusetts and only four survived to adulthood; Charles Wentworth Upham Jr. born in 1830 and died at the age of 30 in Buffalo, New York, married to Mary Haven, no children; William Phineas Upham born in 1836 and died in 1905, Newton, Massachusetts, married to Cynthia Bailey Nurse and had two daughters (Mary Wendell Upham and Elizabeth Upham); Sarah Wendell Upham born 1839 and died unmarried at 25; and Oliver Wendell Holmes Upham born in 1843 and died in 1905, Salem, Massachusetts, married to Caroline Ely Wilson, one daughter (Dorothy Quincy Upham, b. 1881) and one son (Charles Wentworth Upham, b. 1883).
He attended Harvard in the class of 1821, and was a member of the Porcellian Club.[1] A classmate and former friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Upham was an opponent of the burgeoning Transcendentalism movement and later engineered for Nathaniel Hawthorne to be dismissed from his job at the Salem custom house.[2] He also arranged for Jones Very to be institutionalized at McClean Asylum.[3] Senator Charles Sumner once referred to Upham as "that smooth, smiling, oily man of God".[2]
In 1858, Upham was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society.[4]
Upham died on June 15, 1875, in Salem, Massachusetts.
