Charles D. Norton

Charles Dyer Norton (March 12, 1871 – March 6, 1923) was an American banker who served as the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary to President William Howard Taft.

Early life Norton was born on March 12, 1871, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. and Harriet Arvilla ( Dyer) Norton (1846–1921). Through his mother, he was a direct descendant of Mary Dyer, the Quaker martyr, and of Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island. In 1910, Norton left the Treasury Department (and was succeeded by A. Piatt Andrew) to become Secretary to President William Howard Taft, where he "organized the Commission on Economy and Efficiency which prepared the Government estimates on a budge basis for the first time." He worked for Taft for one year and was succeeded by fellow former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Charles D. Hilles.

In 1911, he left the White House to become Vice President of the First National Bank of New York (which later became Citibank). In 1918, Norton retired as vice president of the Bank, and became president of the First Security Company, an affiliated institution, succeeding George Fisher Baker who became chairman of the board.

Norton was president of the Coal and Coke Railway Company, the New Gauley Coal Corporation and a vice president of the West Virginia Coal and Coke Company. He was a trustee of the Adams Express Company and a director of the American Railway Express Company, the First National Bank, Equitable Life Assurance Society, Montgomery Ward & Co., Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Coal Co., American Telephone and Telegraph Company among others. Lucia Garrison Norton (1902–1992), who married Alan C. Valentine in 1928. Charles McKim Norton (1907–1991), who married pianist Martha Chipman Hutcheson (d. 1988) in 1939.

Norton died of complications from influenza on March 6, 1923, at 4 East 66th Street, his home in New York City. At the time of his death, his eldest son was a senior at Harvard, his daughter was a senior at Smith, and his younger son was at Groton. He was buried at Rosedale Cemetery in New Jersey. His widow, who never remarried, died in New York on February 8, 1948.