Charles E. French (1846-1912) was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, and died in Clifton Springs, New York. His father, George R. French, began Geo. R. French & Sons, the largest boot and shoe repair business in Wilmington. French was a clerk and salesman. Sometime prior to 1880 he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he became the secretary for the office of the Crown Roller Mills and Christian Bros' Mill Company. In 1888, in St. Paul, Minnesota, he married Anne Warner, 1869-1913, who was a novelist, essayist, and writer of short stories for magazines. The couple later divorced. French wrote to Mary Baker Eddy from Minneapolis in 1886 to order a copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures for his sister, Susan M. Nixon. In 1887, he followed up from Wilmington to order further copies for a class he was planning to teach there.

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