Representative Charles Henry Prince

Charles Henry Prince (May 9, 1837 – April 3, 1912) was a U.S. Representative from Georgia and a prominent Republican figure during the Reconstruction era. Born in Buckfield, Oxford County, Maine, he was the son of Noah Prince and Sarah Farrar. His father, a judge and state politician, served as president of the Maine Senate in 1851, providing Charles with an early example of public service and political engagement. Prince attended the local schools of Buckfield and, after completing his education, entered mercantile pursuits in his native town, beginning a business career that would frame much of his later life.

On January 30, 1859, Prince married Eunice A. Atwood. The couple’s first son, Ellsworth Prince, was born on March 30, 1861, and was named in honor of Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth, an early Union martyr in the Civil War. Shortly thereafter, on May 31, 1861, Prince was appointed postmaster of Buckfield, Maine, marking his first formal federal appointment. This position, combined with his business experience, helped establish his reputation as a capable local administrator and community leader at the outset of the Civil War.

Prince’s direct military service began in 1862. On September 29 of that year he was appointed captain of Company C, Twenty-third Regiment, Maine Volunteer Infantry. His service with the regiment dated from September 10, 1862, until the unit was mustered out on July 15, 1863. Although the regiment’s term of service was relatively brief, his commission as captain placed him in a position of responsibility during a critical period of the war, further reinforcing his credentials as a loyal Unionist and public servant.

In 1866, after the war, Prince moved to Augusta, Georgia, during the early years of Reconstruction. There he initially served as cashier of the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Bank, an institution established to serve formerly enslaved people and other African Americans. He later became state superintendent of education for the American Missionary Association (A.M.A.), an organization deeply involved in founding and supporting schools for freedpeople in the South. His wife, Eunice, also worked in Georgia as a missionary under the auspices of the A.M.A. During this period Prince helped arrange aid for the Augusta Institute, an important educational institution for African Americans in its formative years. His work in Georgia placed him at the center of Reconstruction efforts in education and finance, and he emerged as a notable Republican leader in the state. In 1868 he served as a delegate to the Georgia state constitutional convention, participating in the reorganization of the state’s civil and political order after the Civil War.

As a member of the Republican Party representing Georgia, Prince contributed to the legislative process during two terms in office. Upon the readmission of Georgia to representation in Congress, he was elected as a Republican to the Fortieth Congress and served from July 25, 1868, to March 3, 1869, a total of 222 days. His service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history, as Reconstruction policies and the future of the former Confederate states were being debated and defined. Prince and the rest of the congressional delegation from Georgia had been elected in April 1868 for the remaining months of the Fortieth Congress and then attempted to present the same credentials for the Forty-first Congress without a subsequent election. He presented his credentials as a Member-elect to the Forty-first Congress but was not permitted to qualify. In January 1870, Congress determined that the members elected in April 1868 were not entitled to seats in the Forty-first Congress without a new election, thereby ending Prince’s brief but notable tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Prince continued to hold federal office and to play a role in Republican politics in Georgia after leaving Congress. On March 2, 1870, he was appointed postmaster of Augusta, Georgia, an appointment in which Senator Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, a former Vice President of the United States, was a leading supporter. Prince was reappointed to the same post in 1874 and again in 1878. His 1878 reappointment was opposed by most of the Georgia delegation to Congress, with the notable exception of Representative Alexander H. Stephens, the former Vice President of the Confederate States of America, who supported him despite their sharp political differences. Critics in Georgia frequently denounced Prince as a “carpetbagger,” reflecting the intense partisan and sectional tensions of the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction years. During this period he also remained active in national Republican affairs, serving as a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1872, 1876, and 1880.

In 1882, Prince returned to Buckfield, Maine, where he resumed and expanded his mercantile pursuits. He became particularly involved in the insurance business and in the manufacture of brushes, reestablishing himself as a businessman in his home state after more than a decade and a half in the South. His public service continued at the state level, and in 1901 he served as a member of the Maine State Senate, thereby returning to the legislative sphere in the state where his political lineage had begun with his father’s service half a century earlier.

Charles Henry Prince died in Buckfield, Maine, from heart disease on April 3, 1912. He was interred in Buckfield Village Cemetery. He was survived by his wife, Eunice, and three of their four children. Through his work as a merchant, Civil War officer, Reconstruction-era educator and banker, Republican congressman from Georgia, federal postmaster, and Maine state senator, Prince’s career reflected the complex political and social transformations of the United States in the mid- to late nineteenth century.