Charles Phelps was born on April 28, 1850, in Brandon, Vermont, to Jarvis Phelps and Hannah Reynolds. His father was a laborer who owned $50 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Brandon, and he married Laura Carlisle there on September 19, 1868. They had at least nine children: Charles, born around 1869; Cora, born around 1871; George, born around 1877; Elmer, born around 1880; Ellen, born around 1880; Clarence, born around 1886; Lewis, born around 1889; Florence, born around 1890; and Flora, born around 1893. They lived in Goshen, Vermont, and Phelps worked as a farm laborer. They moved to Leicester, Vermont, in the early 1900s. His wife died in 1914. By 1920, Phelps was living in his son Elmer’s household in Manchester, Connecticut. He died of “general arteriosclerosis” in Waterbury, Vermont, on January 21, 1934.