Politics / Business & brands / City history
Charles C. Trowbridge
1800–1883 · explorer, ethnographer, banker, mayor of Detroit
Explorer and early ethnographer of Michigan's Native peoples who became a leading Detroit banker, briefly served as mayor in 1834 and built what is likely the city's oldest surviving house.
- Born
Albany, New York- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 82- Birth name
- Charles Christopher Trowbridge
- Also known as
- Charles Christopher Trowbridge
- Detroit years
- 1819–1883
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Charles Trowbridge came to Detroit from New York in 1819 as a deputy U.S. marshal and clerk. In 1820 he joined Lewis Cass's expedition to the upper Great Lakes and the Mississippi headwaters, then became Cass's secretary, an interpreter and assistant in Indian affairs, recording the languages and customs of the Lenape, Miami, Shawnee and other nations in studies still used by scholars. In 1825 he left government to become cashier of the new Bank of Michigan, and in 1826 he married Catherine Sibley, daughter of Detroit's first mayor. That year he built a frame house on Jefferson Avenue, then open farmland; he lived there until his death, and it still stands as probably the oldest house in Detroit. Elected mayor during the 1834 cholera epidemic, he resigned within weeks. He later ran for governor as a Whig, headed the Michigan State Bank and railroad companies, and led historical and charitable societies.
Highlights
- Member of the 1820 Lewis Cass expedition
- Recorded Native American languages and customs for Cass in the 1820s
- Mayor of Detroit in 1834, during the cholera epidemic
- Whig candidate for governor of Michigan in 1837
- His 1826 Jefferson Avenue house is likely Detroit's oldest
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Lived here · 1826–1883
Charles Trowbridge House
The frame house he built in 1826 and lived in for over fifty years; listed on the National Register and believed to be the oldest surviving house in Detroit.