Wilkes was born on 3 April 1798 to John De Ponthieu Wilkes, a businessman involved in the import trade, and Mary Seton Wilkes. Wilkes's grandmother Elizabeth Ann Seton founded the Sisters of Charity; his grandfather Andrew Seton was a successful Manhattan banker who had become a friend and father figure to John De Ponthieu Wilkes after the young Englishman arrived in New York in the 1760s. The Wilkes family was staunchly Tory but was not without its rebels: John De Ponthieu Wilkes's uncle, also named John, had published a libelous attack on King George III in his newly founded newspaper, The North Briton, in 1762. When John De Ponthieu Wilkes came to the colonies, he learned that in America his uncle was seen as a radical hero on par with Thomas Paine. One Pennsylvania town went so far in its admiration that it renamed itself Wilkes-Barre in honor of the editor and his friend Issac Barre, a member of Parliament and champion of the colonies.
After Mary Wilkes died in 1801 Charles was raised by his sister Eliza, his maternal grandmother, and a nursemaid. He attended a series of boarding schools with his brothers, as well as the preparatory school for Columbia.
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