[1] Born Charles Henry, in Salem, New Hampshire, he was the youngest of four sons of John Ferguson Tenney, a well-to-do farmer, and Hannah Woodbury.

His two older brothers, Daniel and George Washington, established Tenney & Co. shoe manufacturers and were Methuen civic leaders.

[2] In 1868, C. H. Tenney opened offices in New York and established himself as a wholesale commission agent, handling a very large part of the hat production in the United States, and selling more than any similar concern in the world.

This includes the "Searles Tenney Nevins Historic District" established by the City of Methuen in 1992 to preserve the "distinctive architecture and rich character of one of Massachusetts' most unique neighborhoods".

The historic district boundaries were established to include properties and buildings constructed or used by the Searles, Tenney and Nevins families and the people who worked for them.

[6] On July 24, 1888, the benefactor unveiled a Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Memorial on Charles Street in Methuen, created by sculptor Thomas Ball and honoring, among others, those who had served in the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

Begun in 1890 and completed two years later, the mansion was modeled after Château d'Yquem, the ancestral seat of Montaigne, and served as the Tenney family's summer home.

The mansion, modeled after the Chateau Yquem, the ancestral seat of the great Montaigne, crowns a sightly hill, and is approached by a winding driveway, a mile long.

Southwest of the mansion is an unenclosed quadrangle in the Italian style, two sides of which form an open corridor, its roof supported upon pillars of richly colored marble.