BULFINCH, CHARLES (I , American architect, was born in Boston (Mass.), on Aug. 8, 1763, the son of Thomas Bulfinch, a prominent and wealthy physician. He was educated at the Boston Latin school and at Harvard, where he graduated in 1781, and after several years of travel and study in Europe settled in 1787 in Boston, where he was the first to practise as a professional architect. Among his early works were the old Federal Street theatre (1793), the first playhouse in New England, and the "new" State House (1798). He was chairman of the board of selectmen of Boston from 1797 to 1818. He provided for new systems of drainage and street-lighting, reorganizing the police and fire departments, and straightening and widening the streets. He was one of the promoters in 1787 of the voyage of the ship "Columbia," which under command of Captain Robert Gray was the first to carry the American flag round the world. In 1818 Bulfinch succeeded B. H. Latrobe (1764-1820) as architect of the National Capitol at `'Washington. He completed the unfinished wings and central portion, constructing the rotunda from plans of his own after suggestions of his predecessor, and designed the new western approach and portico. In 1830 he returned to Boston, where he died on April 15, 1844. Bulfinch's work, marked by sincerity, simplicity, and refinement of taste, greatly influenced American architecture in the early formative period. His son, STEPHEN GREENLEAF BULFINCH (1809-7o), was a Unitarian clergyman and author.
See "The Architects of the American Capitol," by James Q. Howard, in The international Review, vol. i. (1874) ; and The Life and Letters of Charles Bulfinch (1896), ed. by his granddaughter.