By Bob Harner
Unless you have researched the life of Arizona’s fifth Territorial Governor, John C. Frémont, it’s unlikely that you’ve heard of Judge Charles Silent. Yet Charles Silent was not only a prominent judge and lawyer in the Arizona Territory in the late 1870’s and early 1880’s but also a more successful businessman than his better-known partner, Frémont, making him worthy of a closer look today.
Sources vary concerning Charles Silent’s birth year (1842 or 1843), although all agree that he was born in Baden, Germany. The year Charles and his family emigrated to the U.S. is also variously reported as either 1842 or 1848, but again all sources agree that the family ended up in Columbus, Ohio. Like many working-class people of his time, Silent started working at an early age. At twelve, he left home to seek better employment opportunities in New York. Any education he received there was likely of the self-taught variety.
Again, like many others, the possibility of greater opportunity in the West proved attractive. Having raised enough money for a sea voyage to California (with overland travel across Panama between two shipboard journeys), Silent arrived in San Francisco in August of 1856, making him either 14 or 15 at the time. Realizing that employment possibilities werebetter in mining country, he continued to Drytown, California, where he found work. It’s not clear where he worked or exactly what jobs he held during this time.
As he would prove multiple times in his life, Charles Silent was both ambitious and enterprising. Not content to remain in the working class, he set out to transform himself into an educated professional.While working, he used his spare time for self-study, earning his teaching certificate in 1859, three years after coming to California. After three more years working as a teacher, he enrolled in the University of the Pacific at Santa Clara. While there, in 1864, he met and married Emma Daniel.
After completing college in 1866, Silent became Principal of the Santa Clara school district. While in that position, he began reading law; two years later (after a brief stint as a Deputy County Clerk), he was admitted to the California bar. Almost immediately, he was made a partner in the San Jose law firm of Moore, Laine and Silent. During this period of rapid professional advancement, Silent’s only personal setback was the death of Emma in 1870, leaving him a widower with three children: Edward, Fred and Elizabeth, all under the age of seven.
In the subsequent decade, as a practicing lawyer in San Jose, both his personal and professional fortunes quickly improved. In 1872, Silent was awarded an honorary Master of Arts from the University of the Pacific; that same year, he remarried, this time to Mary C. Tantau. He became deeply involved in local civic matters in San Jose, including the improvement of public schools, the widening and beautifying of city streets, sewer development, and the establishment of the first California State Normal School to train teachers.
In addition to his legal skills and his devotion to public affairs, Silent also began to demonstrate an aptitude for business, particularly railroads, eventually becoming the head of two California railroad lines, one between San Jose and Santa Clara and the other between Santa Cruz and Felton. By the time he turned 35, the immigrant German boy who had left home in Ohio at twelve to find work had become a highly successful California lawyer and businessman.
Aware of his achievements and capabilities, California Senators Newton Booth and Aaron A. Sargent recommended Silent for the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Arizona. Silent accepted the appointment and traveled to the territorial capital in Prescott in February of 1878, leaving his wife and children behind in California (in addition to the three children from his first marriage, Charles and Mary had two additional children, Florence and Chester).
Shortly after arriving, Silent realized that the private practice of law was considerably more lucrative in the Arizona Territory than serving as a judge, so he informed the Arizona Territorial Legislature of his intention to resign. The Legislature responded by raising his salary to $2000 annually. Not only was Silent’s new salary higher than any of his fellow associate justices, it was only slightly less than the salary provided for the Territorial Governor (approximately $2600/year).
In October of the same year (1878) the new Territorial Governor, John C. Frémont, arrived in Prescott, and the stage was set for an unlikely business partnership and lifelong friendship.
Next Week: Silent and Fremont
Judge Charles Silent, Associate Justice of the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court (1878–1880), January 1901. Photo public domain.
President Rutherford Hayes, who appointed both Judge Silent and Governor Frémont to their respective positions. Photo public domain.
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