Representative Christopher Columbus Upson

Christopher Columbus Upson (October 17, 1829 – February 8, 1902) was a U.S. Representative from Texas and a lawyer whose career spanned the antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction eras. He was born near Syracuse, Onondaga County, New York, on October 17, 1829. Raised in upstate New York, he attended the local common schools, receiving a basic education that prepared him for advanced study. Demonstrating academic promise, he went on to attend Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he pursued a classical collegiate education typical of mid-nineteenth-century professionals.

After his studies at Williams College, Upson turned to the law. He studied law in New York and was admitted to the bar in 1851. That same year he commenced the practice of law in Syracuse, New York, entering the legal profession at a time of rapid national expansion and rising sectional tensions. Seeking broader opportunities, he moved to San Antonio, Texas, in 1854. In San Antonio he engaged in the practice of law, establishing himself in the legal community of a frontier city that was becoming an important commercial and military center in the state.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Upson aligned with the Confederacy. During the conflict he served in the Confederate States Army as a volunteer aide, with the rank of colonel, on the staff of General W. H. C. Whiting. In 1862 he was appointed by the Confederate government as associate justice of Arizona, a Confederate territorial jurisdiction that existed largely on paper and reflected the Confederacy’s ambitions in the Southwest. His wartime service and judicial appointment placed him among the Confederate civil and military leadership operating in the western theater.

Following the war, Upson resumed his legal career in Texas as the state underwent Reconstruction and the reestablishment of civil government. A Democrat, he became active in public affairs and was eventually drawn into national politics. He was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-sixth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Representative Gustave Schleicher. Upson took his seat on April 15, 1879, representing Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was subsequently reelected to the Forty-seventh Congress and served continuously from April 15, 1879, to March 3, 1883. During his tenure in Congress, he served in an era marked by debates over Reconstruction’s aftermath, federal authority in the South, and the economic development of the expanding nation.

In 1882 Upson sought to continue his congressional career but was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination, ending his service in the House at the close of the Forty-seventh Congress. After leaving Congress, he returned to San Antonio and resumed the practice of law, again devoting himself to his profession in the growing city. He continued to live and work in San Antonio for the remainder of his life.

Christopher Columbus Upson died in San Antonio, Texas, on February 8, 1902. He was interred in San Antonio City Cemetery No. 1, one of the city’s historic burial grounds, closing a life that had encompassed service as a lawyer, Confederate officer and judicial appointee, and member of the United States House of Representatives from Texas.