Charles James Morse was born on July 7, 1852, in Poland, Mahoning County, Ohio.

He was an engineer and collector of Chinese and Japanese art. He studied civil engineering at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College (1871-1877). From 1876 to 1877, he was an engineer for the Massillon Bridge Co., and in 1878, together with his brother Henry G. Morse (1850-1903), he founded Morse Bridge Co. of Youngstown, Ohio. After the company was destroyed by fire in 1888, he visited Europe with members of the American Society of Civil Engineers. In 1890-1891, he was manager of the Association of Bridge Builders, with an office in Chicago, and became the consulting engineer and western representative of the Edgemoor Bridge Works of Wilmington, Delaware. He later moved to Evanston, Illinois, where was in charge of the construction and replacement of several important bridges. In 1897, he retired in order to pursue his interest in oriental art. He spent a year in Japan, visiting the great temples, museums, and private collections there. During his years of study, he collected paintings, prints, pottery, and other objects of Chinese and Japanese art, and a library of eight thousand volumes relating to art and art history, for which he built a fireproof library and vault adjoining his home. He was a member of the Royal Asiatic Society and the Asiatic Society of Japan.

In 1884, he married Anne Perkins Woodbridge (1861–1962). He died on December 6, 1911, in Evanston, Cook County, Illinois, and is buried in Poland, Ohio.