Charles Carow

Charles Carow (October 4, 1825 – March 18, 1883) was an American merchant and shipowner. He was notably the father of Edith Carow Roosevelt, who became the First Lady of the United States through her marriage to President Theodore Roosevelt.

**Early Life**

Born in New York City, Charles Carow was the youngest and only surviving son of Isaac Carow and Eliza Mowatt. His father, Isaac Carow, was involved in the shipping industry and held positions such as a former president of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York and an incorporator of the Bank of Commerce in New York. Charles had an elder sister, Julia Carow, who married English steel manufacturer Edward Fisher Sanderson. Julia was the grandmother of Henry Furniss, 1st Baron Sanderson. The paternal grandparents of Charles Carow were Isaac Carow and Ann (née Cooper) Carow. His great-grandfather was Josué Quereau, a Huguenot immigrant from France who settled in New York before 1721.

**Career**

Charles Carow’s father relocated to New York in 1793 and later formed a shipping line in partnership with Robert Kermit, owner of the Red Star Line. As Robert Kermit had no children, a close relationship developed between him and Charles Carow, who was taken into partnership with Kermit in the firm Kermit & Carow after his father's death in 1850. The firm specialized in general ship-owning, commission, and commercial trading. Following Kermit's death in 1855, Carow became the owner of the schooner The West Point, which operated until 1867, providing cargo and passenger service between Liverpool and New York.

**Personal Life**

On June 8, 1859, Charles Carow married Gertrude Elizabeth Tyler in Norwich, Connecticut. Gertrude was born in 1836 and was the daughter of Emily (née Lee) Tyler and Daniel Tyler, a Union general during the American Civil War. During their residence in Manhattan, the Carows were neighbors of Theodore Roosevelt Sr., on East 20th Street. The couple had three children: Robert Kermit Carow, who was born and died in 1860; Edith Kermit Carow, born in 1861, who married Theodore Roosevelt in 1886; and Emily Tyler Carow, born in 1865, who died unmarried in Porto Maurizio, Italy, in 1939.

**Death**

Charles Carow died in New York City on March 18, 1883. His funeral service was held at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, where he was subsequently buried in the church's graveyard. In 1927, his daughter Edith purchased the Gen. Putnam Inn in Brooklyn, Connecticut, which was the ancestral home of the Tyler family.