Charles Brandon Boynton

Background

Charles Brandon Boynton was born on June 12, 1806, in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The Boynton were among the early settlers of the township. The names of his parents are not recorded, but they may have been Henry and Mary (Meacham) Boynton.

Education

After attending the Stockbridge Academy, Boynton became a member of the class of 1827 at Williams College, but on account of ill health left in the senior year without taking his degree.

Career

Having studied theology privately with the Rev. Mr. Woodbridge of Spencertown, New York, Charles Boynton was ordained by the Columbia Presbytery in October 1840. Boynton held charges at Housatonic, Massachusetts, 1840-45, and at Lansingburg, New York, 1845-46, and then went to Cincinnati to the Vine Street Church, at that time the Sixth Presbyterian, where he remained till March 1856. While in the West, Boynton became actively interested in the antislavery movement.

In the autumn of 1854, he was one of a party sent to explore and report upon the climate, soil, productions, general resources, and promise of the territory of Kansas. His report, A Journey Through Kansas (1855), is an interesting account of the country before the trouble over slavery had grown acute.

From 1856 to 1857, he was in his native Berkshires again as pastor of the South Church in Pittsfield. He then returned to the Vine Street Church in Cincinnati, only to leave it to be chaplain of the House of Representatives from 1865 to 1869. While in Washington, he was pastor of several churches and a teacher in the United States Naval Academy.

Meanwhile, he was busy writing. In 1856, he had published anonymously The Russian Empire: its Resources, Government, and Policy. In 1864, appeared English and French Neutrality and the Anglo-French Alliance, in their Relations to the United States and Russia.

Some chapters from this work were republished in 1865 as The Navies of England, France, America, and Russia, and the whole book, considerably revised, was reissued in 1866 as The Four Great Powers: England, France, Russia, and America: their Policy, Resources, and Probable Future.

In 1867-68, he brought out in two ponderous, stodgy volumes a History of the Navy during the Rebellion, a semiofficial work, for which he had access to the archives of the Navy Department. He was pastor of the Vine Street Church in Cincinnati for the third time from 1873 to 1877 and died at the home of a daughter in Cincinnati on April 27, 1883.

Achievements

• Boynton had a successful and productive career: he engaged in business, was president of the first railroad in Berkshire County, studied and practiced law, was a justice of the Berkshire County court and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Russian empire: its resources, government, and policy Volume 1

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • The History of the Navy During the Rebellion Volume 1

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • The Four Great Powers: England, France, Russia and America; Their Policy, Resources, and Probable Future. A Revision with Important Modifications of ... “English and French Neutrality,” Etc

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

Religion

In his religious affiliation Charles Boynton was a Presbyterian. After having studied theology privately with the Rev. Mr. Woodbridge of Spencertown, New York, Charles Boynton was ordained by the Columbia Presbytery in October 1840.

Views

Boynton points of view were vividly shown in his books, where he advocated a strong navy and an alliance, formal or informal, with Russia to offset the encroachments of England and France, but his understanding of world politics was not equal to his earnestness and patriotism.

Connections

On November 5, 1834, Charles Brandon Boynton married Maria Van Buskirk of Troy, New York, by whom he had seven children.

Father:

Henry Boynton

Mother:

Mary (Meacham) Boynton.

Wife:

Marie Van Buskirk Boynton

May 1806 - 25 October 1880

Daughter:

Anna Clarissa Boynton Lockwood

14 May 1842 - March 1894

Daughter:

Mary Emma Boynton

1848 - 15 December 1916

Son:

Henry Van Ness Boynton

22 July 1835 - 3 June 1905

Son:

Charles Augustus Boynton

30 September 1836 - 5 September 1915

Son:

William McLean Boynton

1839 - 5 July 1879