Codman, Charles Russell, eldest son of Charles Russell and Anne (Macmaster) Codman, was born in Paris, France, on the 28th of October, 1829, while his parents were traveling abroad. The Codman family have been identified with Boston since 1640. His father was a well-known merchant, whose mother was Margaret, daughter of Hon. James Russell of Charlestown, and his grandfather, Hon. John Codman, laid the foundation of the family fortune. His mother was of Scotch origin on her father's side, and on her mother's was of New York Dutch descent from the Dey and Van Buskirk families.
He was educated in the private schools of Boston, under the late Henry R. Cleveland, Edmund L. Cushing (afterward Chief Justice of New Hampshire), and the late Franklin Forbes. He was also for three years at school near Flushing, L. I., under the late Rev. William A. Muhlenberg, a distinguished divine of the Protestant Episcopal church. In due time he entered Harvard College, and graduated in the class of 1849. He then studied law in the office of the late Charles G. Loring, and at the Harvard law school. He was admitted to the bar in 1852, and practiced law for a short time. Subsequently engaging in general business, he resided in Boston until 1855, and then moved to Barnstable.
At Walton-on-Thames, England, on February 28, 1856, Mr. Codman was married to Lucy Lyman Paine, daughter of the late Russell Sturgis of Boston, and afterwards of the firm of Baring Brothers & Co., of London. They have three sons and two daughters living: Russell Sturgis, Anne Macmaster, Susan Welles, John Sturgis and Julian Codman.
In 1861 and '62 he was a member of the school committee of Boston. In 1864 and '65 he represented a district of the city of Boston in the state Senate; for four years, from 1873 to '75 inclusive, he was a member of the House of Representatives, serving each year on important committees—in the last two being chairman of the judiciary committee.
He began life as a Whig. In 1856 he joined the Republican party, and was an active member of the same until 1884, since which time he has acted with the Democrats.
During the war of the rebellion Mr. Codman served as colonel of the 45th Massachusetts regiment, having previously been lieutenant and captain in the Boston Cadets. He has been president of the Boston Provident Association, succeeding the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop; president of the Massachusetts Homoeopathic Hospital; a trustee of the state Insane Asylum at Westborough. He was elected a member of the board of overseers of Harvard College in 1878, and again in 1884. He was president of the board in 1880 and '81; again in 1887, and now occupies the position. He was Republican candidate for mayor of Boston in 1878.
Mr. Codman has always been independent in political connections. He supported the Republican party in its early days, when resistance to the slave power seemed to him a duty. He gave the Democratic party an equally cordial and enthusiastic support, when to his mind that party stood for just and liberal tariff legislation. He has always been identified with, and heartily in favor of, the cause of civil service reform, and, in fact, to all the great moving reforms that tend to the purification of politics and the advancement of the best interests of the country, his powerful influence is uniformly given, and in this advocacy his clarion voice utters no uncertain sound.