Representative Charles Jervis Gilman

Charles Jervis Gilman (February 26, 1824 – February 5, 1901) was a United States Representative from Maine and a lawyer whose public career spanned state legislatures in both New Hampshire and Maine during the turbulent antebellum period. He was born in Exeter, Rockingham County, New Hampshire, on February 26, 1824, into a prominent New England family. He was the grandnephew of John Taylor Gilman, longtime governor of New Hampshire, and Nicholas Gilman, a signer of the United States Constitution and later a U.S. Senator from New Hampshire. This family background placed him in a tradition of public service that would shape his own professional and political life.

Gilman received his early education in Exeter and attended Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, where he pursued classical studies. He subsequently studied law and enrolled at Harvard Law School, from which he was graduated before mid-century. After completing his legal education, he was admitted to the bar in 1850 and commenced the practice of law in his native town of Exeter. His early legal career coincided with his first entry into public office, and he quickly became active in state politics.

In 1851 and 1852, Gilman served as a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, representing his community in the state legislature. During this period he was associated with the Whig Party and participated in the political debates of the era, which were increasingly dominated by sectional tensions and questions of economic development. Seeking broader opportunities, he moved to Brunswick, Cumberland County, Maine, in the early 1850s. There he married Alice McKeen Dunlap, a member of a locally prominent family, and continued the practice of law. In Brunswick he resided in the John Dunlap House, a substantial Federal-era residence that later became known as the Gilman Mansion, reflecting his long occupancy and local standing.

Gilman quickly established himself in Maine public life. He served as a member of the Maine House of Representatives in 1854 and 1855, participating in state legislative affairs at a time when party alignments were shifting and the Whig Party was in decline. He also served as a member of the State Whig committee, helping to guide party strategy and organization in Maine during its final years. As the Whig Party collapsed and new political coalitions formed around opposition to the expansion of slavery, Gilman aligned himself with the emerging Republican Party, which drew many former Whigs into its ranks.

In national politics, Gilman’s prominence increased with the rise of the Republican Party. He was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-fifth Congress and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1857, to March 3, 1859, representing Maine. His term in Congress placed him in Washington during the administration of President James Buchanan, a period marked by intense sectional conflict over slavery, the aftermath of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the approach of the 1860 presidential election. After serving a single term, he declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1858, choosing instead to return to his legal practice and local affairs in Brunswick.

Gilman remained active in Republican politics after leaving Congress. He served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1860, the pivotal convention at which Abraham Lincoln was nominated for the presidency. His participation in that convention underscored his continued engagement with national political developments and his alignment with the Republican Party’s platform on union and free labor. In his home community, he was known for his interest in public improvements, including the introduction of waterworks and other civic infrastructure projects that reflected the broader nineteenth-century movement toward urban modernization and public health reforms.

Charles Jervis Gilman spent the remainder of his life in Brunswick, where he continued to practice law and maintain his involvement in civic and political affairs. He died in Brunswick, Maine, on February 5, 1901, just short of his seventy-seventh birthday. He was interred in Pine Grove Cemetery in Brunswick, closing a life that linked the political traditions of early New England with the emerging Republican politics of the mid-nineteenth century and combined service in two state legislatures with a term in the national Congress.