Charles Jervis Langdon was born to Jervis and Olivia Lewis Langdon into a prominent family of Elmira, New York. His father, a self-made man, was the owner of a prosperous coal business as well as an abolitionist. By age 18 Charles, heir to this fortune, had not shown much interest in it or in maintaining the family's social prominence. Hoping to foster those things, Jervis decided to send Charles on a "grand tour". This was to be an 1867 luxury cruise to Europe and the Holy Land on the steamer Quaker City, and prominent passengers had been booked to go, such as Henry Ward Beecher and General William Tecumseh Sherman. While they both cancelled and did not go, an obscure newspaper reporter named Mark Twain was paid to take part and send back articles chronicling the trip. These articles would eventually be compiled and published in 1869 as a book called "Innocents Abroad", Twain's first best-seller which rocketed him to fame. Twain and Langdon befriended each other, and "Charley", as Twain called him, features prominently as a character in "Innocents Abroad". It is said that one day on the Quaker City, in the Bay of Smyrna off of Asia Minor, Langdon was showing Twain his state room when Twain spied a miniature portrait of the Charles's sister, Olivia Langdon, with which he immediately fell in love. Langdon introduced Twain to Olivia at the end of that year when Twain was paying a visit to New York City to see him and other Quaker City friends. Twain fell in love with the real Olivia as well, and was eager to see her again. Charles invited Twain to visit his family at their home in Elmira, which Twain did for a week in July 1868. After initial rejections, Charles's father finally consented in February 1869 to Twain's proposal to marry Olivia. They were married in February 1870, and later that year Charles inherited his father's business upon his death. A few years later Charles married Ida C. Clark and together they had three children. Charles, who later in life had the title General, continued to run his father's coal business and lived in Elmira for the rest of his life. He was a lifelong Republican and was a delegate to the 1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago. The funerals of his sister Olivia Langdon Clemens (1904) and brother-in-law Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens (1910) were both held at "Charley's" Elmira home.