Charles W. Upham

For the New Zealand soldier, see Charles Upham

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 W. Upham
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 (1802-05-04)May 4, 1802 Saint John, New Brunswick Colony, British Canada
Died	June 15, 1875(1875-06-15) (aged 73) Salem, Massachusetts, U.S.
Nationality	Canadian, American
Political party	Whig, Free Soil, Republican
Spouse	Ann Susan Holmes
Signature

Biography

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.

See also

• 78th Massachusetts General Court (1857)
• 79th Massachusetts General Court (1858)

Publications

• Life, Explorations and Public Services of John Charles Fremont. Ticknor and Fields, Boston, MA. 1856
• Salem Witchcraft with an account of Salem Village and a history of opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects. Frederick Unger, New York, 1978 (Reprint), 2 vv.
• "Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather A Reply". Morrisania, N.Y. 1869. Public Domain. Project Gutenberg free eBook.
• Lectures on Witchcraft Comprising a History of the Delusion in Salem in 1692 (1831) Kessinger Publishing (Reprint), 2003. ISBN 978-0-7661-8088-8
• A Discourse Delivered on the Sabbath After the Decease of the Hon. Timothy Pickering. Kessinger Publishing, United States, 2010 (Reprint). ISBN 978-1-163-74927-2
• Eulogy on the Life and Character of Zachary Taylor. BiblioLife, LLC, USA (Reprint), 2009. ISBN 978-1-117-40148-5
• Memoir of Francis Peabody, President of the Essex Institute. Pranava Books, 2008 (Reprinted on demand from 1868 edition.
• Letters on the Logos (1828) Kessinger Publishing, 2003 (Reprint). ISBN 978-0-7661-4679-2
• Life of Sir Henry Vane, Fourth Governor of Massachusetts in the Library of American Biography, conducted by Jared Sparks Vol IV.

References

• Ellis, George Edward: Memoir of Charles Wentworth Upham (1877).