Charles Fleetford Sise

Charles Fleetford Sise
Charles Fleetford Sise and his wife
Born	(1834-09-27)27 September 1834 Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States
Died	9 April 1918(1918-04-09) (aged 83) Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Children	Charles Fleetford Sise Jr. (First Son) Edward Fleetford Sise (Second Son) Paul Fleetford Sise (Third Son)

Charles Fleetford Sise, Sr. (27 September 1834 – 9 April 1918) was a U.S.-Canadian businessman and one of the first presidents of Bell Canada. He was also part of its first board of directors, and that of the Northern Electric and Manufacturing Company (Nortel), the telephone company's equipment manufacturer, from 1895 to 1918.

He had formerly been a "hard nosed" sea captain before being commissioned as an agent by the newly formed National Bell Telephone Company of Boston, Massachusetts, to help lead its incipient Canadian division.

From the time he was hired as an agent to Bell Canada in 1880 until his death in 1918 he was the company's single greatest advocate and leader, also overseeing its necessary divestiture of territories in the Maritime Provinces in 1887–89 and from the Prairie Provinces during 1908–09. His moulding influence and direction during those many years was extensive, pivotal and decisive, with his influence ultimately enduring until the last of his proteges retired in 1944.

Sise was born on 27 September 1834 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire as the sixth son of Edward Fleetford Sise and Ann Mary Simes. His father owned shares in ships and was also a merchant. Sise had two wives, first marrying Clara Bunker in Mobile Alabama on 20 February 1860, with whom he had four daughters, and then marrying Caroline Johnson Pettingell in Newburyport, Massachusetts on 4 June 1873, with whom he had three sons.

He received his education only to age 16 at which time he was hired on to one of the ships owned by his family. He subsequently received his commission as a ship's captain, again on a family owned merchant ship, the Annie Sise, six years later. He commanded ships across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for several years until his first marriage in 1860, when he entered into the ship-brokering business in New Orleans.

Born and raised as a 'northerner', Sise was closer to the sympathies of the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War, and reportedly helped their efforts, likely due to his friendship with the Confederacy's president, Jefferson Davis. Sise served as a blockade runner and intelligence agent for the Confederated States, and was also Davis' personal secretary, leading to a several years long estrangement with his family in Portsmouth .