Public PersonBusinessRailroadBank DetroitPoliticianMayor Mid 19th Century Early 19th Century Territorial Period Whig
Charles C. Trowbridge was a U.S. Indian agent, Detroit banker, then railroad executive, and mayor during the territorial period and early statehood period.
Trowbridge was born in Albany, New York, on December 29, 1800, the youngest of six children.1 His father died when he was two. Trowbridge apprenticed to a merchant in Owego, New York, but the business went bankrupt in 1817. At the age of nineteen, Trowbridge moved to Detroit at the behest of Major Thomas Rowland who was able to appoint Trowbridge as a United States Deputy Marshall and deputy Clerk of the Court. After moving to Detroit, Trowbridge took up the study of law but does not seem to have practiced. He assisted in the 1820 census because at that time the Marshall's office conducted the census. He joined the Lewis Cass Expedition as the assistant to Captain David Bates Douglass, Corps of Engineers and topographer, but so impressed Cass that he became Cass's personal secretary. Upon his return, Trowbridge took up duties as assistant Indian agent Indian Agentfor Michigan.2Administrator
Trowbridge married in 1826 Catherine Whipple Sibley?, Solomon Sibley's oldest daughter. They moved into a home on Jefferson Avenue that Trowbridge had built and still exists. To this day the structure is known as the "Charles Trowbridge House". They had at least one daughter, Sarah Sibley Trowbridge? who married George Hendrie on October 31, 1865.
Trowbridge served as U.S. Indian agent and interpreter between 1821 and 1825 at Detroit and Green Bay. He negotiated a treaty between the U.S. and the Winnebago and Menominee Indians. In 1824, he interviewed Tenskwatawa? because he was interested in recording the traditions, history, and culture of the Shawnees, a culture and history, that by 1824, was rapidly disappearing. According to Richard White, Trowbridge's interview with Tenskwatawa was "preserving him and his people against the day they would disappear."3 Trowbridge resigned his position in the Indian service in 1825 when he was appointed the cashier of the Bank of Michigan following the termination of James McCloskey.
Between 1825 and 1843, Trowbridge rose from cashier to president of the Bank of Michigan. Between 1844 and 1853, he served as president of the Michigan State Bank. In 1853, he served as the secretary of the Oakland & Ottawa Railroad? and then shortly thereafter was elected its president. Trowbridge served as secretary-treasurer and then president of the Detroit & Milwaukee Railway? Company and was one of the directors of the Detroit & St. Joseph Railway Company.4Railroad
"In 1833, in company with Samuel Hubbard, Pliny Cutler and Edmund Monroe, of Boston, he laid out the Village of Allegan."5
Trowbridge was elected in 1833 as an aldermanAlderman in the Common Council of Detroit. In 1834, he was selected to serve as Mayor of Detroit during the Cholera Epidemic, but resigned in the fall. During the statehood struggle, Trowbridge advocated acceptance of the Toledo Compromise?, a position that probably did not make him popular with his Whig friends as the Whigs ended up boycotting the Frostbitten Convention?. In 1837, he ran as the Whig candidate for governor against the re-election bid of Stevens T. Mason? but lost by the slim margin of only 237 votes.6
Trowbridge was selected as the first secretary of the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan. This was probably around the year 1822. Later, he served as a regent of the revived University, between 1839 and 1842.7UM Regent
He was described as "a perfect type of the old school gentleman" and was feted upon his 82d birthday.8
He died at Detroit on April 3, 1883.
1. ⇑ Emory Wendell, Wendell's History of Banking & Banks & Bankers of Michigan (Detroit, MI: Winn & Hammond, 1902): 306. ⇑
2. ⇑ James V. Cambell, "Biographical Sketch of Charles C. Trowbridge," Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, Pioneer Collections: Report of the Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan (1894), 478-491. ⇑
3. ⇑ Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empire, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, 2011), 522. ⇑
4. ⇑ Michigan Historical Commission, s.v. "Charles C. Trowbridge," Michigan Biographies (Lansing: by the commission, 1924), II-369. ⇑
5. ⇑ Emory Wendell, Wendell's History of Banking & Banks & Bankers of Michigan (Detroit, MI: Winn & Hammond, 1902): 308. ⇑
6. ⇑ Emory Wendell, Wendell's History of Banking & Banks & Bankers of Michigan (Detroit, MI: Winn & Hammond, 1902): 308. ⇑
7. ⇑ Michigan Historical Commission, s.v. "Charles C. Trowbridge," Michigan Biographies (Lansing: by the commission, 1924), II-369. ⇑
8. ⇑ Michigan Historical Commission, s.v. "Charles C. Trowbridge," Michigan Biographies (Lansing: by the commission, 1924), II-369. ⇑
Michigan Historical Commission, s.v. "Charles C. Trowbridge," Michigan Biographies (Lansing: by the commission, 1924), II-369.
Emory Wendell, Wendell's History of Banking & Banks & Bankers of Michigan (Detroit, MI: Winn & Hammond, 1902): 306-307.
City of Detroit Planning and Development Department, Trowbridge House.
James V. Cambell, "Biographical Sketch of Charles C. Trowbridge," Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, Collections 6 (1894), 478-491.
Kinietz, Vernon, and Erminie W. Voegelin, eds. Shawnese Traditions: C. C. Trowbridge's Account, Occasional Contributions from the Musuem of Anthropology of the University of Michigan, no. 9. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1939.
See also Kinietz, Vernon, ed. Meearmeear Traditions: Occasional Contributions from the Musuem of Anthropology of the University of Michigan, no. 7, pp. ix-x. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1938.
Kresge, Beulah Puffer. Charles Christopher Trowbridge and his descendants, with connections with the families of Sibley, Miller, Wilkins, Ward, Moss, Donnelly, and Hendrie With additions by Sanford Alexander Moss of Lynn, Mass. (noted in text). Detroit, 1940-41.
Thirty-two page text excerpts from Detroit Society for Genealogical Research Magizine, Oct. 1938-June/July 1939.
Reynolds Farley and Judy Mullin, Charles Trowbridge House, Detroit1701.org.
Contains information not noted in other sources.
Wikipedia — This article has a lot of information, although some of it (such as relating to Trowbridge's UM service) is confused.
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