Researching Charles Reed

Charles M. Reed was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. He was the grandson of the first settler of Erie, Seth Reed. He attended the public schools and was graduated from Washington College in Washington, Pennsylvania. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in Philadelphia in 1824 but did not practice. He was engaged in business in Erie with his father, an owner of vessels on the Great Lakes. He was appointed colonel of militia in 1831 and brigadier general at the expiration of his commission. He was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1837 and 1838.

Reed was elected as a Whig to the Twenty-eighth Congress. He was an unsuccessful candidate for re-election in 1844. He resumed shipping on the Great Lakes and was also engaged in banking, mercantile pursuits, and the railroad business from 1846 to 1849. He died in 1871 in Erie, where he is interred in Erie Cemetery.

Reed's son, Charles M. Reed, Jr., served as mayor of Erie from 1872 to 1873. His election being shortly after Reed's death, one newspaper described the new mayor as the son of the late General Charles M. Reed.

Reed was an illegitimate son of Arthur Charles Verelst (1779–1843). He was brought up by an uncle. When his father's brother William Verelst (1784–1851) died, Reed inherited the estate at Aston Hall, Yorkshire, and changed his surname to Verelst.

During the 1840s and 1850s he worked for Sir William Jackson in laying out a housing estate in Claughton, and designing villas within that development. Two roads in the estate, Charlesville and Reedville, are named after him. In 1852–54 he was president of the Liverpool Architectural Society. In addition to designing buildings locally, Reed also carried out works further afield, including in North Wales, the Lake District, and Lytham, Lancashire. He was a commissioner of Birkenhead for many years. He died in Claughton, Birkenhead.