Charles H. Titus, commissioner of elections for the city of Topeka, is a native of Ohio, born Dec. 15, 1835, in the city of Dayton. His parents were Myron and Sarah A. (Smith) Titus. He is of English descent, that branch of the Titus family in America having descended from Robert Titus, who immigrated to this country from England. Silas Titus, the grandfather of Captain Titus, was one of seven brothers who took up homesteads in New York.

Captain Titus was reared and educated in his native Ohio city, but at the opening of the Civil war was a resident of Cincinnati, where he enlisted and recruited 150 men for the three-months service in the Sixth Ohio infantry, which was recruited principally from an independent military organization of the city of Cincinnati, known as the Guthrie Gray Battalion, April 15, 1861. He was made second lieutenant of Company C, April 19, and was mustered in with his regiment at Camp Harrison, April 27, immediately after which they were transferrred[sic] to Camp Dennison to be equipped and placed, in readiness for the field. After four months' service he was mustered out Aug. 21, 1861, and on Oct. 21, 1861, received an appointment as conditional lieutenant, being assigned to the Sixty-third Ohio infantry. He was promoted to the captaincy of Company F of that regiment Dec. 20, 1801, and was ordered with his company to establish and command a shore battery of three guns on the Ohio river between Marietta and Parkersburg, Va. After the abandonment of that post the regiment was ordered to report to Maj.-Gen. John Pope at Commerce, Mo., where it was brigaded with the Twenty-seventh, Thirty-ninth and Forty-third regiments as the Ohio brigade. While participating in every movement of his company and regiment throughout the New Madrid, Island No. 10, Farmington and Corinth campaigns, Captain Titus also performed the duties of judge advocate of the First division of the Army of the Mississippi. After receiving an internal injury that increased other physical disabilities incurred in the service to a disabling degree he resigned his commission June 18, 1862. In September following, the raid of Confederate Gen. Kirby Smith through Kentucky for the purpose of capturing Coviugton and Newport of that state and the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, demanded the services of every man in the Ohio valley for their defense. On reporting for duty to Maj.-Gen. Lew Wallace, commander of the department, the captain was appointed volunteer aide-de-camp on his staff with orders to inspect and report the condition of the fortifications erected for the defense along the Kentucky hills by Gen. O. M. Mitchell in 1861. Following this, within thirty-six hours, he directed the organization of a regiment of Cincinnati citizens for fatigue service and was appointed, respectively, to the positions of provost marshal of Covington and Newport and commander of Fort Mitchell, on the right of the fortifications. This campaign proved a bloodless one, but it was a wonderful demonstration of patriotism and the nation's material resources in war.

In April, 1869, Captain Titus was elected auditor of the city of Cincinnati, and in May, 1871, removed to Kansas, settling in Morris county, where he subsequently participated in the varied experiences of a Kansas homesteader and was elected a member of the house of representatives in 1872. In 1881 he became a citizen of Topeka, which city has been his home since that time, and where he has engaged successively in the service of railroads and in real estate, insurance and commercial pursuits. During his long residence in the state he has been identified with its growing interests and has at all times lent a helping hand to any movement for the moral or material advantage of his community or the state. He served as deputy county clerk of Shawnee county, which position was tendered him, unsolicited, in January, 1886, and which he resigned in 1887 to accept the management of the Topeka Real Estate Exchange and become assistant secretary of the Kansas State Fair Association. In 1902 Captain Titus was appointed by President Roosevelt register of the United States land office at Topeka, which position he resigned in 1905 in order to accept the office of commissioner of elections for the city of Topeka, under a commission issued by the governor of the state, which office he still retains. Captain Titus is a Republican in his political adherency and has always been an active and enthusiastic supporter of Republican principles and party candidates. He has served as president of the Shawnee Republican county convention, the Kansas Republican State League, and of the Old Soldiers' McKinley and Roosevelt Club of Shawnee county, in 1900. He associates with old comrades in arms as a member of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Captain Titus was married Aug. 12, 1862, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Miss Sarah Elizabeth Griffey, an only daughter of the late David and Rebecca Griffey, of that city, the former of whom was one of the leading iron workers and manufacturers of Cincinnati. Mr. Griffey was a native of Kentucky and Mrs. Griffey of Virginia. Their daughter was born and reared in Cincinnati, and was educated in the Wesleyan Female College. To Captain and Mrs. Titus were born three children, two of whom—Edgar Stanley and Lou Ella—were born in Cincinnati and died in early childhood. Their third child, Charles Griffey, was born in Parkerville, Morris county, Kansas, May 29, 1873, and is general secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association at Sacramento, Cal. He was for a number of years a prominent worker in the Young Men's Christian Association in Kansas and in other Western states and territories.