Calvin Clifford Chaffee was an American medical doctor and politician. He was an outspoken opponent of slavery.
Occupation
politician
Position held
United States representative
Citizenship
United States
Born
August 28, 1811
Died
August 8, 1896
Overview
Calvin Clifford Chaffee (August 28, 1811 – August 8, 1896) was an American doctor and politician. He was an outspoken opponent of slavery.
Life and work
Born in Saratoga Springs, New York, Chaffee graduated from the medical school of Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, in 1835. He settled in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he began his medical practice.
In 1854, he was elected on the American Party ticket to the Thirty-fourth Congress as part of the Know Nothing party sweep of the Massachusetts congressional delegation that year. An abolitionist who received an honorary degree from Amherst in the same ceremony as Charles Sumner, he became a Republican and was reelected to Congress as such in 1856.
He was married to Clara Nourse (1813 – 1848) until her death in 1848. They had two children: a daughter, Emma Lovetta Wilder (Chaffee) (1838 – 1910), and a son, Clemens Clifford Chaffee (1841 – 1867).
