Charles E. Belknap

Charles Eugene Belknap (October 17, 1846 – January 16, 1929) was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan.

Belknap was born in Massena, New York and attended the common schools there. He moved with his family to Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1855.

During the American Civil War, he enlisted as a private on August 12, 1862, in Company H of the Twenty-first Regiment, Michigan Volunteer Infantry. He was rapidly promoted through several ranks, including:

He served in the Army of the Cumberland during the Atlanta Campaign, and with General Sherman's March to the Sea and through the Carolinas Campaign. He was mustered out of service on June 8, 1865 and was breveted to the rank of major. At the battles of Stones River and Chickamauga he received seven wounds, none of them very serious. He later joined the Michigan Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.

After the war, from the fall of 1865 to 1871, Belknap lived on a farm in Sparta, Michigan, before returning to Grand Rapids, where he organized the Belknap Wagon and Sleigh Company, a very successful business that manufactured wagons and sleighs.

Beginning in 1872, Belknap served in the city's volunteer fire service for many years, as both foreman of Company No. 3 and as Assistant Chief. He was instrumental in the transition from a volunteer to a paid fire service. He was a member of the Grand Rapids board of education 1878–1885, served on the board of aldermen from the Seventh Ward 1880–1882, and was mayor in 1884. In 1885, he was appointed by Governor Russell A. Alger as a Trustee of the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb in Flint, Michigan for a term ending in 1891.

...
Wikipedia