Christopher Grant Champlin

Christopher Grant Champlin (April 12, 1768 – March 18, 1840) was United States Representative, Senator and a slave trader from Rhode Island.

Biography He was born in Newport in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, the oldest child and only son of the merchant ship owner and Newport slave trader Christopher Champlin (1731–1805), who was also the first Grand Master of Freemasons in Rhode Island from 1791 to 1794.

His uncle George Champlin was a member of the Rhode Island Legislature and also funded slave voyages to Africa; his niece, Elizabeth Mason (daughter of his sister of the same name), married Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. His great nephew was architect George Champlin Mason Sr. (1820–1894).

After completing preparatory studies, Champlin entered Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1786, then going on to continue his studies at the College of St. Omer in France. He returned to Newport, was an investor with his father and uncle in at least one slave voyage (the Brig Elizabeth), and married Martha Redwood Ellery (b. 1772) (a niece of Continental Congressman and signer of the Declaration of Independence William Ellery), in 1793. They had one child, a son Christopher Champlin V [1794-Jan 1811] (Yale class of 1810) who died young. For several years after his marriage, Champlin worked as an assistant to his father in the shipping business.

Champlin served as commanding officer (with rank of colonel) of the Newport Artillery Company from April 1815 to April 1818. He commanded the company when it responded to the 1815 New England hurricane, also known as the Great Gale of 1815. As a measure of their gratitude, the Newport town council made the following resolution: "Voted and resolved that the thanks of the town Council be presented to Colonel C. G. Champlin and the officers and privates of the Artillery Company of the town of Newport under his command for the prompt attention they paid to the request of said town council to turn out and guard the property of the unfortunate sufferers in the late destructive storm, and for their good conduct while on duty."

He attended Newport's Congregationalist Church. Champlin was president of the Rhode Island Bank until a short time before his death in Newport in 1840; interment was in Common Burial Ground.