Robert Charles Winthrop

Robert Charles Winthrop was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Thomas Lindall Winthrop (1760–1841), the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, and Elizabeth Bowdoin Temple (1769–1825), who were married on July 25, 1786.[1] He was the youngest of 13 children born to his parents, including .[1]

His maternal grandparents were Sir John Temple, 8th Baronet (1731–1798), the first British envoy to the United States,[2] and Elizabeth Bowdoin, the daughter of James Bowdoin (1726–1790), the Governor of Massachusetts. His paternal great-great grandfathers were Joseph Dudley (1647–1720) and Wait Still Winthrop (1641/2–1717).[1]

Winthrop attended the prestigious Boston Latin School, and graduated from Harvard University in 1828,[3] which he attended with Dr. Henry Ingersoll Bowditch, George Stillman Hillard, Judge John Gilchrist, Edward Sprague Rand, and others of note.[4]

After studying law with Daniel Webster he was admitted to the bar in 1831 and practiced in Boston. At 24, he served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1835 to 1840,[5] and served as Speaker of the House of that body from 1838 to 1840. He was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1838.[6]

Winthrop was elected US Representative from Massachusetts as a Whig to the 26th United States Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Abbott Lawrence; he was reelected to the 27th Congress and served from November 9, 1840, to May 25, 1842, when he resigned due to the death of his wife.[4]

He was subsequently elected to the 27th Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of his successor, Nathan Appleton; he was reelected to the 28th and to the three succeeding Congresses and served from November 29, 1842 until July 30, 1850. He served as the Speaker of the House during the 30th Congress (1847–1849), but could not secure a second term, losing the 1849 speakership election to Howell Cobb in a protracted 63-ballot contest. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1849.[7]

After Daniel Webster resigned from the United States Senate to become Secretary of State in 1850, Winthrop resigned from the House and, at 41, was appointed by fellow Whig Governor George Briggs to fill the remainder of Webster's Senate term.[5] Winthrop's views proved no more palatable to abolitionists than did Webster's, and he failed to win reelection by the state legislature to either of Massachusetts' Senate seats in 1851. He resigned without completing his term immediately following his election loss. Later that year, Winthrop actually won a popular plurality in the race for Massachusetts Governor but as the state Constitution required a majority, the election was thrown into the legislature. The same coalition of Democrats and Free Soilers defeated him again. His final venture into elected political office was as a presidential elector on the Whig ticket in 1852. Afterwards, Winthrop became an independent, unsuccessfully supporting Millard Fillmore, John Bell, and George McClellan.[8]

On March 12, 1832, he married Elizabeth Cabot Blanchard (1809–1842), the daughter of Francis Blanchard (1784–1813) and Mary Ann Cabot (1784–1809), and the adopted daughter of Samuel P. Gardner.[4] Before her death, Robert and Elizabeth had three children:[1]

• Robert Charles Winthrop, Jr. (1834–1905), who married Frances Pickering Adams (1836–1860). After her death, he married Elizabeth Mason (1844–1924), daughter of Robert Means Mason (1810–1879) and Sarah Ellen Francis (1819–1865) and granddaughter of Jeremiah Mason, on June 1, 1869.
• Elizabeth "Eliza" Cabot Winthrop (1838–1921)[15]
• John Winthrop (b. 1841)

After Elizabeth's death, he married his second wife, Laura (née Derby) Welles, widow of Arnold Francis Welles. Laura was the daughter of attorney John Derby and granddaughter of Elias Hasket Derby (1739–1799), on November 6, 1849.[1] They remained married until her death in 1861.

On November 15, 1865, he married for the third and final time, to Adele (née Granger) Thayer (1820–1892), the widow of John E. Thayer. She was the daughter of Francis Granger (1792–1868), the Postmaster General under President William Henry Harrison and Cornelia Rutsen Van Rensselaer (1798–1823).[4][16]

Winthrop died in Boston in 1894, and is interred in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.[4] In his will, he left bequests to the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Boston Provident Association, the Boston Children's Hospital, the Library of the Boston Latin School, and the library of the Sunday school of Trinity Church, Boston.[17]

• 59th Massachusetts General Court (1838)
• 60th Massachusetts General Court (1839)
• 61st Massachusetts General Court (1840)

Notes

Sources

• Fowler, William (1980). The Baron of Beacon Hill. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-27619-5. OCLC 163369557.
• Walett, Francis (September 1950). "James Bowdoin, Patriot Propagandist". The New England Quarterly. 23 (3): 320–338. doi:10.2307/361420. JSTOR 361420.
• Winthrop, Robert (1852). The Life and Service of James Bowdoin. Boston: Little, Brown. OCLC 296634.

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Robert Charles Winthrop

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Robert Charles Winthrop.

• Quotations related to Robert Charles Winthrop at Wikiquote

• United States Congress. "Robert Charles Winthrop (id: W000646)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Robert Charles Winthrop at Find a Grave
• Winthrop's role as Chairman of the PEF
• Robert Winthrop, Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions, Little, Brown and Company, 1852. 776 pages
• The Ancestors of Senator John Forbes Kerry (b. 1943)
• "Winthrop, John" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1889.