Charles, the writer in the family was a dreamy, bookish youth fond of history and poetry. The family home owed its poetic name, “Norlands,” to his recollection one winter’s day of these words from Tennyson’s “Ballad of Oriana”:
“When the long dun wolds are ribb’d with snow,
And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow.”
After graduating from Bowdoin, Charles worked in the land office in Washington, a post Elihu had secured for him. He gave it up to go to California with the forty-niners. His moderate success as a gold miner permitted him to enter a career more suited to his talents as editor of a San Francisco newspaper. His editorial stance followed the political line set down by his brothers in Washington – strongly Republican and opposed to slavery. He also wrote less dangerous copy for a small magazine, “Pioneer,” under such pen names as Oliver Outcast, and Peter Plunkett. In 1861 his first novel, Philip Thaxter, was published. A second novel, Gomery of Montgomery, appeared in 1865.
The editor-novelist was a presidential elector in 1860, and in addition to carrying California’s returns to Washington, he brought along his own request for the collectorship of the port of San Francisco. Lincoln refused the request fearing that to appoint another Washburn to an important and lucrative post would cause disapproval. Instead, he offered Charles the post of American Minister to Paraguay.
During seven eventful years in Paraguay Charles became involved in such a desperate and dangerous situation at the hands of Lopez, the Paraguayan dictator, that a United States gunboat was sent to rescue him. He returned to face a congressional investigation into his conduct of affairs in Paraguay. Completely exonerated, he went home to the Norlands where he wrote a two-volume history of Paraguay.
Among Charles’ accomplishments was the invention of a typewriter, “Washburn’s Typeograph.” He sold the patent to the Remington Company. Charles was married to Sallie Cleaveland who shared his adventures in Paraguay. With their three children, they lived in California for a few years, and then settled permanently in New Jersey.
