Judge Charles Candee Baldwin

Author of the Baldwin Genealogy, Circuit Judge, Corporate Attorney and founder of the Western Reserve Historical Society

• Memorial of Charles Candee Baldwin, LL. D., President of the Western Reserve Historical Society
• Find A Grave Memorial ID # 22443
• Baldwin Genealogy, Pg. 149, 201-202
• Judge Charles C. Baldwin Photo
• Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
• Baldwin Resources
• C.C. Baldwin Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society
• Charles Candee Baldwin, Ohio Biographies

Charles Candee Baldwin, son of Seymour Wesley Baldwin and Mary Elizabeth Candee, was born in Middletown, Connecticut on December 2, 1834. He married with CAROLINE SOPHIA PRENTISS, daughter of Charles William Prentiss, a successful lawyer of Vermont, then of New York, and eventually of Cleveland. Her mother was Caroline Kellogg. She was born January 18, 1842. They wed in 1862.

Children: Mary Candee (1/6/1864), Samuel Prentiss (10/26/1868), Mabel (d.y.) and Seymour David (11/20/1875-9/17/1878).

"Most things said to be impossible are so only in the mind of the man too inert to attempt them." Whether Charles Candee Baldwin ever expressed this thought in so many words, he undoubtedly thought it, for his whole life exemplified it. From earliest childhood it was the object of each day to prove to himself that he had not reached the limit of his endeavors. His boyish journals are filled with references to little tasks he had set himself to accomplish--and the strictness of that juvenile self-discipline brings amazement, filled with tenderness, for the lad who lived so seriously.

He was born on December 2, 1834 in Middletown, Middlesex County, Connecticut, son of a successful country merchant, Seymour Wesley Baldwin, who was the fifth in descent from Richard Baldwin of Milford, Connecticut, who founded the Baldwins in America, coming from County Bucks, England. Seymour Wesley Baldwin died in Elyria, Lorain County, Ohio, at a ripe old age. His mother was Mary Elizabeth Candee, of French Huguenot descent, her ancestors being among the earliest in Connecticut and Massachusetts colonies, amount them William Pincheon, the first treasurer of the Massachusetts Colony, and Captain Wadsworth, who spirited the famous charter into the hollow oak, and John Allyn, of the Connecticut Colony.

S.W. Baldwin immediately removed business upon his marriage to Middletown, Connecticut, where December. 2, 1834, Charles Candee was their first born. In May of the following year, the young husband took his wife and babe to the wilderness of the Western Reserve, traveling by way of the Erie Canal. He settled in Elyria, Lorain County, as a country merchant. Undoubtedly the son derived his business talent from his father, as he did many of his qualities of determination, persistence, and self-discipline. A year later, the young mother died, leaving not only Charles Candee, but a babe five days old, named David. Seymour W. Baldwin remained in Elyria until 1847. marrying a second time, this stepmother proving a blessing to the otherwise motherless Charles and David.

In 1847, Seymour Wesley Baldwin, having accumulated the competence he set out to secure, returned to Meriden, Connecticut, thus giving opportunity for the education of young Charles, who was sent to a boarding school in Middletown, from there to Wesleyan University, in the same town as his birth. He graduated with honors in August of 1855, and the same month was entered in the Harvard Law School.

In 1857 we find him a full-fledged Bachelor of Laws and in March of the same year find him in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, provided with the best start of all for a young man just entering the legal profession as an assistant in the office of S.B. & F.J. Prentiss, then the leading lawyers of the thriving city. In October of the same year, he was admitted to the bar of Ohio. He served as the assistant in this office until 1861, when he was taken into full partnership of S.B. Prentiss, the firm then being called Prentiss & Baldwin.

In 1862 he married with Miss Caroline Sophia Prentiss, niece of his law partner. She was the daughter of C.W. Prentiss, a successful lawyer of Vermont, then of New York, and eventually of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where he was in partnership with his son-in-law. She was born January 18, 1842, her mother being Caroline Kellogg, daughter of Deacon Erastus Kellogg, of Peacham, Vermont. Both the Kelloggs and the Prentisses of New England are among the earliest of the collonists, with ancestors conspicuous for valor in the Indian wars of the seventeenth century.

Four children were born to Charles Candee Baldwin and Caroline Prentiss, of whom the two youngest died in childhood; a daughter Mabel and a son, Seymour David. The heart of the father never recovered from this loss. He lavished the tenderest care on the two eldest children, who grew to maturity. The daughter, Mary Candee (named for her father's mother) was born January 6, 1864, and a son, Samuel Prentiss (named for his preceptor, partner, and friend) was born on July 15, 1894.

Daughter May married Dr. John Pascal Sawyer (children: Charles Baldwin Sawyer born on July 15, 1894 and David Pascal Sawyer born on December 13, 1895; both becoming students at Yale College). Samuel Prentiss Baldwin married Lillian Hanna. He became an attorny and lives in Cleneland. No children.

In 1870 Charles Candee Baldwin was compelled to take not a rest but a change of activity on account of ill health, and spent the year abroad in company of his venerated father. He used the time as an opportunity, however, and made many antiquarian investigations, including research in the genealogical origins of the Baldwin family in Aylesbury, England. He also collected in Paris and Belgium a remarkable French section for the library of the Western Reserve Historical Society, and some few additions to his own private library in the original French, relating to American history.

The partnership of Prentiss & Baldwin had been interrupted in 1867 by the election of S.B. Prentiss to the Court of Common Pleas, and Mr. Baldwin then combined practice with his father-in-law, C.W. Prentiss, up to that time of New York, and later a new partner was added, so that the firm was known as Prentiss, Baldwin and Ford; then as Baldwin and Ford, which it was in 1884 when Mr. Baldwin was compelled to withdraw on account of election as judge of the Circuit Court of Ohio in the Sixth Judicial District. This was the first time C.C. Baldwin had ever been a candidate for office. He was practically the unanimous choice of the county, was elected by a flattering majority, and twice re-elected by large majorities. He successfully served two full terms and was just entering on the third when a sudden illness culminated in his death on February 2, 1895.

Of Judge Charles Candee Baldwin's time on the bench, it is enough to say that raely was one of his decisions been reversed. such was his care and precision and his determination to measure out justice. In 1892 he was honored by the degree of Doctor of Law from Wesleyan University.

His home library was where he found his greatest relaxatio and recuperation. In his shelf-lined rooms it was usually some work of history or science that would be found in his hands. In 1861, when vice-president of the Cleveland Library Association, he planned the Western Reserve Historical Society of Cleveland and in 1867 he helped to organize it. Under his leadership and the loving care of Colonel Charles Whittlesey, president, it was successfully and after Whittlesey's death it fell upon, as the only choice of that organization, the head of Charles Candee as the successor; a position he remained at until his death. He was chriefly instrumenttal in the movement to secure a permanent home for the society and in housing its priceless treasures in a fitting and fireproof manner.

He said one who, with the ties which should bind him to the place of adoption, is not warmly, deeply interested in its history, its prosperity or adversity, who, whether through good or evil report, will not defend, protect, and uphold it, is neither a good citizen attached to the State he lives in, not devoted to his County.

In addition to his Baldwin Genealogy and Supplement and other Baldwin histories, he wrote many other works on Ohio history and genealogy. He was a long time Corresponding Secreary of the Historical Society at Cleveland, a Trustee of the State Archeological Society of Ohio, and Corresponding Member of the New England Historical Genealogical Society, as well as of the Worcester Society of Antiquity. He was an actively connected with numerous institutions throughout the country and corresponding member of the Anthropological Society of Washington.