Charles was born April 21. 1826, at Coopersburg, Lehigh Co. He at an early age became a student of the Pennsylvania College, at Gettysburg, and later
pursued his studies in Philadelphia. Having decided upon the law as a profession, he entered the United States Law School in Philadelphia, under Professor Hoffman, and while in the office of Judge George M. Stroud, of the above city, was admitted in May 1847, to practice in the courts of Philadelphia, and in August of the same year in the courts of Lehigh County. Ill health precluding the active pursuit of his profession, Mr. Cooper retired to his farm at Coopersburg, and continued employed in the management of its varied interests until 1855, when on the organization of the Allentown Bank he was elected its cashier. He was married on the 4th of February 1851, to Miss Rebecca E., eldest daughter of Hon. Jacob Erdman, of Upper Saucon. Their children are Franklin Erdrnan and Henry Peter.

Mrs. Cooper's death occurred Aug. 2, 1854, and he was again married, Sept. 1, 1864, to Miss Sarah B. Erdman, sister of his first wife, whose children are Anna Rebecca and Charles William. Mrs. Cooper died Jan. 15, 1872, and on the 14th of October, 1873, be married his present wife, Miss Ida C., daughter of Addison Erdman, of Allentown. Mr. Cooper was, in 1854, elected under the new school law the first county superintendent of schools, and resigned the position on becoming identified with the bank. His reputation as a skillful financier led to his appointment as a member of the Centennial Board of Finance in 1876. He is a trustee of the Union Trust Company, trustee of the Allentown Female College, and of the Muhlenberg College, and has been for many years director of the public schools of Allentown, as also of several manufacturing interests, and president of the Board of Trade. Mr. Cooper is in his political creed a Democrat, though not ranked among the working representatives of the party. He was, however, a delegate from the district embracing Lehigh and Bucks Counties to the National Convention held at Baltimore in 1852, and was in 1850, and again in 1855, elected justice of the peace. He is a member of St. John's Reformed Church of Allentown. Mr. Cooper is a man of refined and cultivated taste, and has found leisure amid the engrossing demands of a business life to devote to other congenial pursuits. His aptness for public affairs, and the various matters pertaining to finance, has neither warped his taste nor modified his enjoyment of all that is attractive in literature, art, or the field of scientific research.