Charles C. Van Zandt
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Charles Collins Van Zandt (August 10, 1830 – June 4, 1894) was the 34th
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.


Early life

He was born in
Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, ...
. He graduated from
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in
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,
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, class of 1851. He then studied law and was admitted to the
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in 1853. In 1863 he married Arazelia, daughter of the judge and poet Albert Gorton Greene.''The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography'', 13 vols, 1898.


Political career

In 1855, Van Zandt was elected City Solicitor of Newport and was chosen clerk of the
Rhode Island House of Representatives The Rhode Island House of Representatives is the lower house of the Rhode Island General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Rhode Island, the upper house being the Rhode Island Senate. It is composed of 75 members, elected t ...
. In 1857, he was himself elected to the House. The following year, he became
Speaker Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** I ...
of the House. He was a
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from 1869 to 1870. He was a delegate to
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from Rhode Island in 1868,
Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island The current lieutenant governor of Rhode Island is Sabina Matos, who was sworn in on April 14, 2021, after Daniel McKee succeeded to the office of governor. The first lieutenant governor was George Brown. In Rhode Island, the lieutenant gover ...
from 1873 to 1875 serving under Governor Henry Howard, and
Governor of Rhode Island The governor of Rhode Island is the head of government The head of government is the highest or the second-highest official in the executive branch of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, o ...
from 1877 to 1880. One of his foremost concerns as a governor was to expand the state's educational system, especially for the literacy needs of the state's large, urban immigrant population. He lived in an elegant
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style house on Pelham Street in Newport. He died in 1894 and was interred at
Island Cemetery The Common Burying Ground and Island Cemetery are a pair of separate cemeteries on Farewell and Warner Street in Newport, Rhode Island. Together they contain over 5,000 graves, including a colonial-era slave cemetery and Jewish graves. The pair ...
, Newport, Rhode Island.


References


External links

*
Charles Collins Van Zandt entry
at the
National Governors Association The National Governors Association (NGA) is an American political organization founded in 1908. The association's members are the governors of the 55 states, territories and commonwealths. Members come to the association from across the politica ...

Rhode Island governors
at
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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Van Zandt, Charles C. 1830 births 1894 deaths American people of Dutch descent Republican Party governors of Rhode Island Lieutenant Governors of Rhode Island Politicians from Newport, Rhode Island Rhode Island lawyers Republican Party members of the Rhode Island House of Representatives Republican Party Rhode Island state senators Speakers of the Rhode Island House of Representatives Trinity College (Connecticut) alumni Burials in Rhode Island 19th-century American politicians 19th-century American lawyers