Charles Bigelow (politician)
Charles Grafton Bigelow (July 15, 1805 – October 27, 1885) was a Massachusetts-born businessman who served as the fourth mayor of Houston, Texas, from January 6, 1840, to January 15, 1841. He founded the Northwest Territory’s first tannery in Detroit and later moved to the Republic of Texas, where he ran a farm equipment store and an ice house in Houston.
In 1840, Bigelow won the Houston mayoral race by one vote, defeating incumbent George W. Lively. His term faced tensions between Houston, Harris County, and rival settlements. He worked to improve relations, hosted visiting leaders, and helped establish Houston’s city seal (designed by former mayor Francis W. Moore Jr.). He also began construction of the Houston and Brazos Railroad with a ceremonial groundbreaking on July 25, 1840.
Bigelow pushed to end a license tax on brothels in favor of a property tax, but a court injunction temporarily blocked the license taxes. After leaving office, he remained in Houston as a businessman. In 1846 he served as a colonel in the Texas Regiment of Rangers during the Mexican-American War and likely participated in the Battle of Palo Alto.
His first wife, Cynthia Greenwood Warren, died in 1849 when the brig Cuba was lost at sea. He returned to Massachusetts and married Harriet Caroline Taft on December 6, 1849; they had three children: Charles, Harriet “Hattie,” and Charles Sam Houston “Texas Charley” Bigelow. He died in Grafton, Massachusetts, at age 80 and is buried in Worcester.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:42 (CET).