Charles Wentworth Upham

Charles W. Upham was Salem’s first foreign-born mayor, born May 4, 1802, in Saint John, New Brunswick (then the New Brunswick Colony of British Canada). A Harvard College graduate (1821), he continued at Harvard Divinity School and served as a colleague-pastor of Salem’s First Church from 1824 to 1844, resigning after a bout of bronchitis but remaining active there.

He held numerous public offices, serving in the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1849, 1859, 1860), the State Senate (1850, 1857, and 1858, the latter two years as president), and one term in the U.S. Congress as a Whig (1853–1855).

Upham’s career combined ministry, scholarship, and public service. He was a historian, best known for Salem Witchcraft, the first comprehensive study of the 1692 events. He remained active in civic and intellectual life until his death in Salem on June 15, 1875.

He is buried on Anemone Path, Lot #132.