Charles Courtney Pickney Holden (August 9, 1827 – February 9, 1905) was an American politician who served as chairman of the Cook County Board of Commissioners and president of the Chicago Common Council.

[5] One of his earliest American ancestors was Richard Holden, who came to America from Ipswich, England, in 1634 with his brother Justinian on the sailing-vessel Francis, settling in what would later become Watertown, Massachusetts.

[6] In Chicago, Holden first worked at a grocery store owned by Charles Sweet on Water Street.

[2][5][6] After the war, he returned to Chicago and worked at the A. H. & C. Burley bookstore on Lake Street from October 16, 1848, until March 1850.

[2][5] His group reached Hangtown, California, on July 12, 1850, where they began mining the middle fork of the American River.

[5] On December 1, 1853, Holden began his journey back East on the SS Winfield Scott, which was headed towards Panama.

[5] After this ordeal, he and other surviving passengers subsequently traveled across the Panama isthmus, and were ultimately taken to New York by the Pacific Mail steamer Illinois, landing there on January 3, 1854.

[5] In 1855, Holden began working as an examiner of lands for the Illinois Central Railroad, a job that he would keep for 18 years.

[5] Holden made a number of successful real estate investments, erecting several commercial blocks.

[5] Holden became politically active in 1858, when he served as a delegate from Chicago to the Republican State Convention in Springfield, Illinois.

[5] He also served as chairman of a committee named to secure the attendance of General Ulysses S. Grant at Dearborn Park in July 1865.

The Democratic faction of the council was led by mayor Francis Cornwall Sherman and alderman John Comiskey.

The deadlock became more severe when Holden led Republicans in refusing to attend meetings, thereby denying quorum.

This was done in hopes of preventing Democrats from taking votes that Republicans feared might undercut the Union Army's effort in the American Civil War.

Presuming Salomon absence, this gave the council an effective 9–9 split with Mayor Sherman being a tie-breaker.

The council passed a number of measures, including "patriotic resolutions" introduced by Holden that indicated the city's support of the national government's leadership in the war.

The resolutions were passed 10–3 (with one Democrat abstaining, and five leaving the meeting before the final vote was cast).

The resolutions included a clause that they would be subject to a public vote to be held at a mass meeting at Bryan Hall.

[2][6] In 1872, he was a nominee to serve as a presidential elector from Illinois if the Liberal Republican ticket headed by Horace Greeley had carried the state.

[5] During the Civil War, he raised a company for the Eighty-eighth Regiment of the Illinois Volunteers, which his brother Levi P. Holden led.