Personal Data

Charles Kirk Kirby was born in 1825-1827 in Massachusetts.

He married first on January 8, 1849 (Ashland MA) to Mary W. Woodcock  (b. 16Sep1825 in Needham MA), daughter of Timothy Woodcock and his wife, Adeline Newell.

He married second on August 1, 1863, in Boston, to Josephine P. Newell (b. 1840-1841 in Providence RI), daughter of Walter Newell and his wife, Susan (LNU).

Charles Kirby died on April 5, 1910, in California.

Career

Charles Kirby was an architect in Portland, Maine, at the time of the 1850 US Census.  By 1855, he had begun practice in Boston, and in 1858 submitted the winning design for the old Boston Public Library on Boylston Street (demolished).

He was one of a number of architects who both designed and built houses in the Back Bay.  Bainbridge Bunting (Houses of Boston’s Back Bay) notes that “at one time or another tax records between 1860 and 1872 show him as the owner of eighteen different houses under construction; after that date city building permits frequently designate him as architect, builder, and owner. … It might further be stated that Kirby took no interest in the affairs of the Boston Society of Architects, which considered it unethical for an architect to act both as contractor and architect for a building.”

From about 1875, G. Wilton Lewis was a member of his office.  In 1878, Charles Kirby moved to California.  He continued to maintain his Boston office, apparently taking Lewis as his partner in the firm of Kirby and Lewis, with Lewis managing the Boston office’s work.  Kirby remained in California, but Kirby and Lewis continued as a firm until about 1882.  Kirby then opened an architecture practice in San Francisco with his son, Charles, and Lewis opened his own office.

After retiring from architecture, Kirby operated the Sierra Park vineyard in Fowler, south of Fresno.

Back Bay Work