Edmund's Community Courier

January 17, 2012

WINTER 2012 EDMUND’S COMMUNITY COURIER

NEWS FROM THE EDMUND CHANDLER FAMILY ASSOCIATION

WWW.EDMUNDCHANDLER.COM

WINTER 2012

Moonlight-Night by Maxfield Parrish

Happy New Year and I hope that you all have had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas. We have big Duxbury news! Also Maine news, the mystery surrounding Reuben Chandler and his family which included the Shaker, Hewett, has been solved. Reuben and his family were declared paupers! TV news about more genealogy shows coming up, a Maine Supreme Court decision involving Cyrus Chandler, research tips and alerts and more!

Next issue, we will feature more details about Reuben’s children. Two of them, plus a brother-in-law were ice dealers and we will find out about ice houses, ice harvesting and ice famines. I still plan to do a story on the new Familysearch, but it keeps changing so hopefully it will be settled down enough to do a story.

DUXBURY NEWS

Duxbury - Showing Old Location and Path's

Things are popping on the Duxbury front. As most of you know our member, Billie, has been diligently working on the Chandlers of early Duxbury for quite some time. Her biggest and latest project has been Joseph Chandler, son of Edmund the immigrant, and Joseph’s grandson Capt. John.

Billie showed, after looking at over 400 Duxbury deeds, where the lands of Joseph Chandler which include the Mayflower Cemetery, the Partridge Academy, the present day town buildings, the church and meeting house, the Bradford houses, in other words, the heart of the town were. Joseph’s land was on both sides of present day Tremont St. up to Harrison and down to Surplus. Billie created a chain of title for those houses and properties which include 900, 907 and 915 Tremont St.

The town is in the midst of creating more historical districts and because the Chandler information that they had was either incorrect or incomplete leaving a big gap in the town history. We are hoping that one of the new historic districts will be named the Chandler District. Not only did Billie show where Joseph’s land was, Billie provided them the real history of the houses at 900, 907 and 915 Tremont St. solving a town mystery.

The house on 915 Tremont is especially interesting to us because we believe it was Joseph’s house. It is one of the oldest houses in Duxbury. We know that Joseph owned the land originally and that the house went to Capt. John.

As far as our group is concerned, we feel that the case has been made that Capt. John was Edmund and Elizabeth (Alden) Chandler’s son and Joseph’s grandson. This Edmund, who married Elizabeth Alden, was the grandson of Edmund, the immigrant and not the immigrant himself as many have confused the two. However, each group has its own way of looking at things and we hope that the Alden Kindred agrees with us about Capt. John. We will just have to wait and see.

MEMBER NEWS

Our long-time member, Dick, has now been appointed president of the Chandler Family Association. Dick is not a descendant of Edmund or of any other American Chandler. So how can that be? He is British, but studies Chandlers worldwide through his “Chandler One Name Study.” In that capacity he has been involved with both Chandler groups. The CFA started out dedicated to the descendants of John Chandler of Jamestown, Virginia, but eventually found that many southern Chandlers did not descend from that John Chandler. As a result the CFA is open to all Chandlers although it does have a mostly southern slant. We take care of the Edmund Chandler family.

The Chandler Family Association has a new web address. It is: www.chandlerfamilyassociation.org.

DNA NEWS

Dick, of both the ECFA and the CFA, is on the Chandler DNA committee and writes that this year there will be a push to encourage more English Chandlers to be tested. This will be a good thing for all as it will provide an opportunity to discover the English origins of several Chandler families, including Edmund as we still don’t know where in England Edmund originated from. The operative word is “opportunity” as we don’t know what will be found.

CORRECTIONS, ADDITIONS AND QUESTIONS REGARDING THE “OTHER” JONATHAN CHANDLER FAMILY

REBECCA CHANDLER AND MAYBE A NEW “MYSTERY GIRL”

As I mentioned in the last edition, things could change with this family – people could be added or dropped. Since then I found that Jonathan Chandler may indeed have had a daughter named Rebecca, only she may have married Jonathan Lane.

My Rebecca married Jonathan Snow. If the Rebecca who married Jonathan Lane was a Chandler, she most likely was Jonathan Chandler’s daughter and therefore not my Rebecca Chandler. My Rebecca would return to the Abel Chandler family (not Rev. Abel as that was another family) who descended from Edmund’s son, Benjamin.

This would bring the number of Rebecca Chandlers, all residing in the Minot/Poland area and all born within a few years of each other, to FOUR! We have identified two of them conclusively previously.

This new possible Rebecca Chandler is buried in the Empire Cemetery where several of, who we believe, were Jonathan and Zeruiah’s children and their families were also buried. This new Rebecca is buried with her husband, Jonathan Lane who was the brother-in-law of Jonathan Chandler, Jr. also buried in the Empire Cemetery.

If Rebecca (Chandler?) Lane was born in 1795 (according to her tombstone she died November 25, 1847 at 52 years 7 months) she would be the “mystery girl” born about that time described in the last edition of the Courier.

However, we will have traded one mystery girl for another, because who was the girl born in the 1780s if my Rebecca Chandler is out?
The source was the iffy Ancestral File, but did make sense, and will have to be investigated further. We may know more after the snow melts and one of our members is able to check on where in the Empire cemetery Jonathan and Rebecca Lane are buried.

MORE ABOUT JONATHAN AND REBECCA (CHANDLER?) LANE’S FAMILY AND A CORRECTION

Jonathan and Rebecca (Chandler?) Lane’s children included John B. Lane who married Jacob Chandler’s daughter, Joann Chandler. We believe that Jacob was probably also one of Jonathan and Zeruiah Chandler’s children. So if this theory is correct, John B. Lane married his first cousin.

Jacob and Thankfull Higgins Chandler were buried in the Hotel Rd. Cemetery in Auburn, Maine. We believe that Jacob was the son of Jonathan and Zeruiah Chandler.

Also buried in the Hotel Rd. cemetery in Auburn are Rufus C. Lane, his wife Adeline and daughter Rebecca C. Lane.

However, Ancestral File family trees had them attached to Simeon and Charlotte (Chandler) Lane. This is incorrect because the facts do not bear this out. The only Rufus Lane aka Rufus C. Lane that I could find was the son of Jonathan and Rebecca (Chandler?) Lane.

Rufus Lane appeared in the household of Jonathan Lane in the 1850 census.

There were so many Chandlers and Lanes– spreadsheet anyone? –there may be more corrections in the future.

THE REUBEN CHANDLER FAMILY OF POLAND, MAINE

FROM PAUPERS to PROSPEROUS CITIZENS

(Reuben*>Jonathan>Judah>Joseph>Joseph>Edmund, the immigrant)

Written By

Carol May

Research by:

Steve Chandler, Janet Griffith, Carol May, Sharron Ross and the ECFA

Last issue we featured a circumstantial reconstruction of the Jonathan Chandler family of Poland, Maine. This time we feature who we believe was Jonathan and Zeruiah (Brown) Chandler’s son, Reuben, and his family. It was Reuben and his wife, Mary Parcher, who started the quest to find their lineage and to solve the mystery surrounding them.

Reuben Chandler

Unbeknownst to each other, there were several of us who were all stuck at the same brick wall — Reuben and Mary (Parcher) Chandler. We each had a different part of the puzzle because we were researching different children of Reuben and Mary. It wasn’t until we converged and pooled our knowledge that we discovered that the children were siblings.

Janet and I were, separately, looking for the Shaker Hewett Chandler’s family. Our member, Sharron, had been on a 20-year-long quest to find Mary Elizabeth Chandler’s ancestors. We found that not only were Hewett and Mary Elizabeth siblings, but so were John, Austin and Malcom who were incorrectly entered into our database as the children of Reuben and Mary (Bucknam) Chandler when they were in fact the children of Reuben and Mary (Parcher) Chandler. Two more siblings were found in Massachusetts records, George, by Sharron and Statira and Luther by Janet.

Research stalled and we were stuck again until more information could be found. Once more information was found, we fit those puzzle pieces together using birth records in Maine, Shaker records, Massachusetts marriage and death records, and census records. From the information that we found, we determined that Reuben and Mary (Parcher) Chandler’s children were:

John born Minot, Maine March 12, 1824
Malcom born Minot, Maine February 8, 1825
Austin born Minot, Maine October 29, 1826
Statira M. born New Gloucester, Maine 1828
Luther P. born Chesterville, Franklin County, Maine about 1832
Hewett born in Poland, Maine December 17, 1833 (from Shaker records)
George W. born Poland, Maine June 27, 1835
Mary Elizabeth born Lewiston, Maine 1837-39

We think that we have found all of the children, but the details and parentage of Reuben and Mary (Parcher) remained elusive. There were no birth records for either of them nor was there a record of their marriage, but we estimate that they were married in the early 1820s.

We had already determined that our Reuben was not a part of the Jonathan and Rebecca (Packard) family of Poland/Minot or of the New Gloucester Philip and Deborah (Hewett) Chandler family despite the fact that Reuben and Mary named one of their sons Hewett.

Having so much difficulty with the Chandler side of the family, we researched the Parchers for clues. Again we were plagued with scant and missing records so we had to do a circumstantial reconstruction of the Parchers. We think that Mary Parcher was the daughter of John and Mary (Gubtail or Guptil) Parcher. We think that her father, John, was the son of George and Mary (Chamberlin) Parcher. Research of the Parchers did come in handy when we tracked who we believe were Mary’s Parcher relatives in Chesterville, Franklin County, Maine. That bit of knowledge explained why Reuben and Mary (Parcher) Chandler’s son, Luther, was born in Chesterville.

We found Reuben in the 1830 US census for New Gloucester, Cumberland, Maine with, who we believe, was his wife and three children, Malcom, born in Minot, Austin, born in Minot, and Statira, born in New Gloucester, Maine. We think that probably their first born son, John, died. As we continued our research we found Hewett, born in Poland, Maine, Luther, born in Chesterville and George, born in Poland, and Mary Elizabeth born in Lewiston, Maine.

Then we found Reuben, alone, with no children and no wife and no occupation listed in the 1840 US census for Poland, Maine. The town of Poland is adjacent to both Minot and New Gloucester.

The big breakthrough came with the discovery of the grave stone for Reuben Chandler, who died in 1847, and was buried in the Empire Cemetery in Poland, Maine. Instead of the breakthrough and growing collection of facts making the story clearer, it became murkier because there were now even more questions and unexplained loose ends.

We now knew that Reuben didn’t die young as we first thought, but why was he alone in the 1840 census? Where were Mary and the rest of the children? We knew that Hewett was placed with the Shakers and indentured to Deacon James Holmes on April 18, 1837, but why as he was only six years old? Why was Statira also sent to live with the Shakers? Why were the children born in so many different places? Why wasn’t Mary buried next to Reuben in the Empire Cemetery when she died? The mystery deepened.

What happened?

That is when Sharron found the key piece of information that tied all of this together, Reuben Chandler and his family had been declared paupers!

From the Eastern Argus newspaper
March 19, 1834
Advertisement
NOTICE
“Reuben Chandler, a pauper, for whose support I have a contract with the town of Poland, for the term of one year from April last has absconded. As I have made suitable provisions for the support of said Chandler and his family, all persons are forbid harboring or trusting them on my account.”
Poland, March 1834

Joseph StroudThen in 1837 a second notice about the family appeared also in the Eastern Argus newspaper.

April 18, 1837
Page 3
Advertisement
Pauper Notice

“The subscriber hereby gives public notice that he has entered into bonds with the town of Poland to support for the term of one year, Mrs. Mary Chandler and three children, and has made suitable provision for their support, but the said Mary left on the 10th inst (archaic for current month) The situation provided for her. This is therefore to caution all persons against harboring or trusting her on my account as I shall pay no debts of her contracting, being at all times ready to maintain her agreeably to my contract with said town of Poland.”

Samuel McCann
Poland, April 14, 1837

In those days if a person or a family were declared paupers, they could be “bid off” which meant being auctioned off to the lowest bidder for their care which is what happened to Reuben and his family. Families could also be split up and children could be taken from their parents and apprenticed out which is probably what happened to Hewett and maybe one or more of their other children. (Read more about paupers, poor farms and poor houses at the end of this article.)

The people who bid on their care were probably counting on the money that was to be paid to them by the town. Having taken on the responsibility for the care of the family, they certainly didn’t want to be held responsible for any new debt the family could incur, hence the legal notices.

Upon first reading it sounds like Reuben was a scoundrel taking off while his family was living on the charity of the town, but a closer look reveals a more complicated story. It may not have been just Reuben who absconded as the newspaper notice also mentions uses the word “them” so it may have Reuben and his whole family. If they left as a family it may have been to stay together and escape the stigma of being declared paupers. According to Jean F. Hankins, author of “Over the Hill to the Poor House”, men didn’t end up on the poor farm because they didn’t want to work it was because they couldn’t work, so it must have also been true for those who were declared paupers.

It is interesting to note the date when Hewett was indentured to Deacon Holmes. It was April 18, 1837, four days after that the notice was printed in the newspaper. Did the town leaders see the notice and send young Hewett to the Shakers. We don’t know.

Reuben and his family were wards of Poland as early as 1833, perhaps earlier, according to the Eastern Argus newspaper. Reuben was a still in his thirties when he was declared a pauper. Things didn’t appear any better for him by the 1840 US census either as he was alone with no occupation listed.

It seems likely that he was disabled. Rufus, who we believe was his brother, was only in his twenties when died in 1826 leaving behind a young family. Could both brothers have been in an accident or suffered from the same illness? As the highest alcohol consumption ever recorded in the US was in 1830, could that have been an additional factor? It is not likely that the town would have supported a drunk. Alcohol was such a problem that men were lying strewn about in the gutters passed out drunk in Portland, Maine. Sometimes entire families were drunk including the children. Hard apple cider often was kept in a pail with a dipper next to the door. The chaos and harm that alcohol brought to families led to the embrace of the Temperance movement especially in Maine. “Taking the pledge” became the new social cause because of the problem.

The disability that caused Reuben to be declared a pauper remains a mystery. It does appear that Mary returned to Reuben at least for a while after she absconded from Joseph Stroud’s custody because she had another child, Mary Elizabeth, born most likely in 1837, but perhaps in 1839. We do not have a definitive source.

As we found Reuben Chandler recorded as living alone in the 1840 US census for Poland, Maine, we can only guess where Mary and some of the children were living because the 1840 only lists the head of household by name.

We know from Shaker records that Hewett and Statira were living with the Shakers, but we still don’t know where Mary was living or where the other children were living until they started showing up in the censuses in the 1850s and 1860s. Did Mary and some of the children eventually go back to Reuben? Were they living with the Shakers, but the records of them living there were lost? Were they living with relatives or friends, ducking authorities even census takers because they had been declared paupers? Was there a rift over religion between Reuben and Mary. We don’t know.

Reuben’s siblings were not having an easy time of it either. Rufus died in 1825 leaving a wife and children and Jonathan, Jr. died in the early 1840s leaving a wife and children.

Reuben died in 1847 and was buried with who we believe were his siblings and their wives. His Chandler family must have loved him and thought well of him because if he were a scoundrel or drunken lay-about it seems unlikely that they would bury him in what turned out to be the center of the row of Chandlers buried in the Empire cemetery. He also had a nice granite headstone and not just a field stone.

Four of Reuben and Mary’s children were found in the US 1850 census. They were Hewett, who was with the Shakers, Luther who was working as a farm hand in Alfred, York, Maine, and Malcom and Austin who had moved to Massachusetts. It is interesting to note that the town of Alfred also had a large Shaker colony.
There was still no Mary, Mary Elizabeth, Statira or George that we could find in the US 1850 census.

Shaker Hill Dormitory in Poland Maine

Mary couldn’t be found in the 1860 US census, either. Shaker records show that she joined the Shakers at Poland Hill on December 4, 1864 when she was 65 and that she died in New Gloucester on July 2, 1868 at age 70. However, other records show that Mary was a few years younger born about 1802. Mary may have lived with the Shakers for years, but did not enter the covenant with them until 1868. She may have been living elsewhere outside of the Shaker community. She could have been an Outer Order Believer who was a follower of the Shakers, but not a covenanted member of the community.

We had wondered why Mary was not buried next to Reuben when she died, but if she had become a covenanted Shaker, most likely she was buried in the Shaker cemetery in New Gloucester. The Shaker cemetery does not have individual stones, just a single stone marker with the word, “Shakers” engraved upon it.
By 1860 all of Reuben and Mary’s children had moved to Massachusetts.

They all most likely moved there for jobs. The American industrial revolution began in the 1840s in Lowell, Massachusetts which caused an exodus of young people, both men and women, to these new industrial centers located in Massachusetts.

Malcom and Austin were living in the same household for the US 1850 census for Charleston, Middlesex, Massachusetts. Malcom later settled in Brighton, Middlesex, Mass and stayed there until he died. Later on Austin moved to Manhattan, New York. Both of them were ice dealers.

Statira married Nathan Tucker on May 12, 1850. Nathan was an ice dealer for a while, but sometime after the US 1870 census for Waterton, Massachusetts the family and the two younger children (the eldest had married) moved to Dunkirk, Chautauqua New York where they were enumerated in the New York State census 1875. By 1876 Statira and the children, were back in Massachusetts. Nathan may have died in New York which prompted the move back to Massachusetts.

Luther had moved from Alfred, Maine to Roxbury, Mass sometime after the 1850 census as he married in Dorchester, Mass in October of 1856. Luther soon chose going west for land and farming over work in the cities of Massachusetts as he and his wife and family were enumerated in the US 1860 census for Burke, Dane County Mass.

We don’t know when youngest brother, George, moved to Massachusetts, but he also lived in Brighton and died in Boston August 28, 1860.

They youngest of the Chandlers, Mary Elizabeth, was enumerated in the US 1860 census for Brighton, Middlesex, Mass, and resided in the household of her brother, Malcom. She married George B. Chamberlin November 27, 1860 in Brighton, Massachusetts. Her husband served as a lieutenant in the Civil War.

The children may have started out as paupers, but Malcom and Austin became prosperous ice dealers, Luther a respected nurseryman, Hewett became a Shaker leader, inventor and nurseryman. The girls married. Statira even had a domestic servant and Mary Elizabeth’s husband was an officer in the Civil War. John probably died as baby and George died, single, at only 25.

Next issue we will have more details about the children and their descendants and a story about what it was like harvesting and selling ice in the days before refrigeration.

PAUPERS, THE POOR FARM AND THE POORHOUSE IN NEW ENGLAND

Carol May

A usually ignored trove of genealogical information, are records dealing with paupers, poor farms and poor houses. The people in these records often could not be found in censuses or church records because of their impoverished status left them without a regular residence. At the very end of this article check out the websites, especially the website dedicated entitled “Mission Statement” as it is a nationwide resource dedicated to as a resource for genealogist, students, teachers and historians.

Now onto the paupers of New England –
The treatment of the poor in America has its roots in England where the town where the paupers lived was charged with the responsibility for taking care of paupers.

Examples can be found in early New England including Duxbury, where you can read about poor and old widows being boarded with families which were reimbursed for their care by the town. The town also took charge of those who were not of sound mind, like Benjamin Chandler (Benjamin>Edmund, the immigrant). As Benjamin was well off, the town did not have to support him, but town leaders appointed a guardian for him. His guardian hired people for his care and did the accounting.

Towns were responsible for its residents, but the townspeople did not want to be burdened with poor newcomers who required support. To avoid this, the town would issue a “warning out.” The impoverished newcomer could be being literally thrown out of town and sent back to their original hometown to be supported there. However, not all persons served with a “warning out” were forced to actually leave. The “warning out” served as legal announcement that the town would not be responsible for the person or persons warned out if they fell into financial difficulty
Some towns actually issued warnings out to perfectly upstanding citizens who moved to the town in sort of a preemptive strike in case the family ever fell on hard times. It was hard enough for the townspeople to feed themselves, without the added burden of paupers or even worry of potential paupers. The problems of illegitimate children, the feeble minded having children, paupers coming in from other towns were all economic worries that towns faced. Today people think of those early New Englanders as a bunch of uptight people fixated on condemning moral laxity, but the reality was that they were all living close to the edge and being inundated with paupers could overwhelm a town’s scarce resources.

Today we grumble about home owners’ associations, co-op boards and condo rules thinking that in the “good old days” people were free to do what they wished.

In reality in early New England, towns had a lot of control over their citizens. If someone sold a house or property, the buyer in many cases had to be approved by the town. The reasons could range from the practical of whether or not the newcomer could be on the way to becoming a pauper, or to the more narrow-minded of not wanting people of other religions, especially Quakers in some areas, to move in.

Even after the custom of warnings out was phased out, towns would spend time and money trying to send the pauper back to their home town. Towns would also try to bill other towns for the care of a pauper, a practice which eventually ended.

Towns practiced the “bidding out” of paupers who were town residents. Once the town determined that individuals or a family were paupers their care was “bid out” to the lowest bidder. The paupers were also expected to work for family to which they were bid out. It was no free ride. The quality of care varied widely from good to Dickensian.

When only dealing with a few individuals, bidding out worked, but when dealing with large families, the town would often split the children up which appears what happened in the case of Reuben Chandler’s family.

Being declared a pauper was more than just a horrible social stigma. The town could take the children away if they were impoverished or untended and place them with relatives or apprentice them out which is what happened to 6-year-old Hewett Chandler. Children were obligated to stay as apprentices until they came of age. The entire family or even just part of the family could also be “bid out” which is what happened in Reuben and Mary’s case.

Generally, women and children were bid out, but not many men as the women and children could do a wide variety of chores while the men might be disabled and not get along.

Because of the difficulty and expense of bidding out large, entire impoverished families and not wishing to have to split families up, towns began creating poor farms.

The thinking was that the creation of “poor farms” would be a more economical and practical solution for the problem of the taking care of the poor. Responsible people were put in charge of poor farms because running them not only involved care the paupers, a chunk of the town’s treasury was involved. Despite that, quality varied widely from the clean and well run to the dirty and disease ridden.

The poor farms would take in whole families, and also the infirm, the aged, the handicapped, the mentally unsound, vagrants passing through town, and children. Usually there were more men than women as the men were single or widowed, too old or disabled to work and had no family or their family couldn’t or wouldn’t take them in. The poor housed there were called, unfortunately, “inmates.” The idea was that the ”inmates” could work on the farm and making it at least mostly self-sustaining, the town only contributing as needed. Another idea that sounded better than it turned out.

When the townspeople realized that the poor farms were costing more than they saved, poor houses were the next step. A poor farm could be brimming with “inmates,” for a while then only have a few, but the farm needed upkeep and animals had to be fed just the same which became an added expense for the town. The superintendent and his wife could be flooded with people needing care to having no one to care for depending on the health and circumstances of the town’s inhabitants.

The poorhouse was more expensive to operate than a poor farm while it was being used, but less expensive when it was idle.
After abandoning poorhouses, towns in Maine tried the voucher system where the poor would apply to the town for aid and if approved would be given vouchers to use at specific merchants. There was a stigma attached to that too, because every year when an accounting of the town’s books was done, there would be, for all to see, the list of those received aid from the town.

Also, people realized that mixing children, adolescents, the handicapped, paupers of all ages, and the mentally ill all in one place was not the best idea. In the large cities asylums for the mentally ill, and orphanages were created, which also had their own problems.
Today, being ”sent to the poor house” is just an expression, but in those days it was a frightening possibility and a threat if one did not save and practice thrift, or abused one’s health with drink, or for women, married badly. Just as they feared Hell in the afterlife, they feared the poor house in this life.

The picture from the postcard that illustrates this story is that of the poorhouse in Rockland, Maine. Our co-chairperson, Bob’s, ancestor, John W. Chandler ran the Rockland, Maine poorhouse or poor farm.MISSION STATEMENT The Poorhouse Story. A great resource about poorhouses in America geared to genealogists. Another great resource for breaking down your brick walls because that lost relative may have been sent their due to infirmity, being an orphan, injury, or disability. Read “Over the Hill to the Poorhouse” on this site. It is highly readable and interesting.Historical Survey of METHODS OF POOR RELIEF IN MAINEWarning out in New England : Benton, Josiah H. (Josiah Henry), 1843-1917 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive This book was originally published in 1911 and may be read online on this web site.POOR FARM History Project | Facebook Maine poor houses
MPR: Over the Hill to the Poor House Minnesota Public Radio including a song about going to the poorhouse
POOR FARM History Project | Facebook This is where the picture of the Rockland, Maine poor house came from.

A MAINE SUPREME COURT CASE

Benjamin M. Royal vs. Cyrus Chandler

There was a precedent setting case involving Cyrus Chandler involving property boundaries.

Cyrus Jonathan,Jr.*Jonathan>Judah>Joseph>Joseph>Edmund) was involved with a dispute over the boundary of a piece of land. Cyrus argued that the boundaries of the land were pointed out to him by his father, Jonathan Chandler, Jr. His father acquired the property in Auburn (then Poland) Maine on February 14, 1822.

Jonathan later conveyed property to Jonathan Lane (my comment probably his brother-in-law) and Rachel Chandler (my comment: Rachel was Cyrus’ aunt). Rachel later conveyed part of the land to Rufus C. Lane (my comment maybe a great nephew).

The precedent that was set in this case was:
“The declaration of ancient persons (my comment Jonathan Chandler, Jr.) made while in possession of land owned by them, pointing out their boundaries on the land itself and who are deceased at the time of the land are admissible evidence…”
Reports of cases in law and equity determined by the Supreme Judicial Court … – Maine. Supreme Judicial Court, John Shepley,

RESEARCH TIPS AND ALERTS!

Our member, Sharron, alerted me to movement afoot to restrict access to the Social Security Death Index because of fears of identity theft. It was pointed out by several genealogists among others, is that the SSDI is a great tool against identity theft because all it would take was a search of the SSDI to check if the social security number belonged to someone who was deceased. Loss of the SSDI would also be a blow to genealogists as it is an excellent place to search for relatives who lived in more recent times.

As of this writing you can still access SSDI for free at Familysearch, but not in the free pages of Rootsweb anymore, but if you want to pay you can access it at Ancestry. This doesn’t seem fair either.
For more information you can read:
Are We Going to Lose the Social Security Death Index (SSDI)? – Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak’s Roots World

Also from Sharron;
Top 100 Most Popular Genealogy Websites

THE “OLD MAN’S DRAFT”

One of the new features of Familysearch is the inclusion of the “Old Man’s Draft.” This included men born from about 1877 to 1897 for possible drafting for duty in World War II. It is also not complete, because most of the records for the southern states and a few other places were destroyed.

If you can find your relative, you will find a trove of information – address where that elusive relative lived, birthplace, job, employer and contact person who was usually a relative. This information was on the front side of the card. The backside of the card gave the person’s physical description.

Unfortunately, with the two people that I looked up, the front side of the card was mistakenly paired with the backside of someone else’s card. So I was getting a wrong physical description.

I found this out while searching for Reuben Chandler’s great-grandson, Clark Gilman Boynton. He was described as a 195 pound, 6’ 1’ black man with probably a desk job. This would have been fine, except that in previous records Clark had been white. So I looked up another Philadelphia area Boynton and found a Charles Boynton, born in Alabama, working as a longshoreman described as 55-years-old, 135 pounds, 5”10” with a pale complexion and gray hair. This also sounded wrong. I figured that there had been a microfilming mix-up and maybe it was a very rare occurrence.
When I looked up my grandfather a similar mix-up occurred. Maybe it was still a fluke, but be aware that it did happen – twice.
I found both men in Familysearch, but neither in Fold3 which serves as a reminder to look in all of the databases that you have access to. At this point, I thought that these mix-ups may be more wide spread, hence the research alert.

TIDBITS

If you are ever passing through western Massachusetts you might want to check out Chandler’s Restaurant if only to take a picture of the sign, although it is an award winning restaurant. I called them and asked if they were named after a specific Chandler hoping for an Edmund connection, but they said no. They got the name for the restaurant the same way that most early Chandlers got that name because Chandlers way, way back were candle makers. Later on Chandlers were also known as grocers and ships suppliers.

Chandler’s Restaurant is located in the Yankee Candle Flagship in South Deerfield, Massachusetts.
Chandler’s Restaurant on Vimeo

TV NEWS

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE”

The genealogy TV show, “Who Do You Think You Are” will be back on February 3rd. It will be in the same time slot on Friday at 8 PM on NBC. Check your listings as these things change. The third season will bring Marisa Tomei, Martin Sheen and Blair Underwood amongst others.

For those unfamiliar with show, it traces the ancestry ( using dozens of researchers from Ancestry.com) of various celebrities and actually visits their ancestral homes, from the gold fields of California (Sarah Jessica Parker), to Belarus (Lisa Kudrow) to Italy and France (Brooke Shields). So even if you are not particularly interested in the celebrity, you get to see some fine research (wish it were as easy as the make it look) and get a tour of various parts of the world.

“FINDING YOUR ROOTS”

Also, just being announced today is FINDING YOUR ROOTS WITH HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR., with the renowned cultural critic and Harvard scholar who also will be in attendance at the TCA/PBS Press Tour. Premiering Sunday, March 25 at 8:00 p.m., the 10-part series delves into the genealogy and genetics of famous Americans, combining history and science in a fascinating exploration of race, family, and identity in today’s America. Professor Gates shakes loose captivating stories and surprises in the family trees of Kevin Bacon, Robert Downey, Jr., Branford Marsalis, John Legend, Martha Stewart, Barbara Walters and Rick Warren, among many others

You can read or listen to more about this new genealogy series by clicking the below link to Eastman’s column below.

January 04, 2012

“Finding Your Roots,” a 10-part Series on PBS

*Another genealogy series is about to be launched on television in the U.S. “Finding Your Roots” with historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. will launch on March 25. That will be the first episode of a 10-part series on PBS stations.

The new series will feature two people in each one-hour episode, including husband-and-wife actors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, who jokes she’s afraid they might turn out to be cousins. “They are indeed distant cousins,” revealed Gates. “Talk about six degrees of separation, right?”

Check your local listings for the exact time and channel in your area.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler Ancestors, Chandler News, General Geneology

October 19, 2011

FALL 2011 EDMUND’S COMMUNITY COURIER by Carol May

: Baldface Mountain Chatham NH Photograph by Steve Chandler

No Halloween tricks, but we hope that you will consider reading about how Judah Chandler inadvertently contributed to scaring the daylights out of people all over the world a treat. Our member, Steve, tipped me off about this unusual connection and took the pictures for the story.

Our main research story focuses on Judah’s son the “other” Jonathan Chandler and family first of North Yarmouth and then of the Poland, Maine. Even if the “other” Jonathan Chandler isn’t your line, it is a study in how a family was reconstructed with no birth records and only tally marks in the censuses.

Actually I had planned to do a story on another recently found Chandler family, when our new member, Sharron re-joined the search to unravel the mystery of Hewett Chandler which led us back to this Jonathan Chandler, who we have touched on in the past. Please take note that this is a circumstantial reconstruction of this family. So there may be mistakes. If you spot any let us know!

Part 1 covers Jonathan Chandler and his family. Part 2 will feature one of Jonathan’s sons, Reuben Chandler and the Dickensian life that he and his family lived, and Part 3 will feature Reuben’s son, Hewett the Shaker inventor. Many contributed research to this story. Not an easy research job!

We also have a report from our member, Cynthia, about the Chandler Family Association meeting that she attended in Texas. The CFA is our sister group and with whom we sponsor the Chandler DNA project. They cover all Chandlers with the exception of Edmund. In this edition, we also have member news, a research alert (avoid this research pitfall) plus more!

MEMBER NEWS

Our members have been busy. Cynthia Chandler, is both a descendant of our Edmund Chandler and John Chandler of 1610 Jamestown, Virginia. Much more than a collection of names and dates, Cynthia even included stories and the history of the areas where they lived in many cases. We hope to put her Edmund line in our library so our members could read it and use it for reference. In the future we hope to spotlight some of her ancestors in the Courier.

Our intrepid researcher, Billie, spent time in Scotland researching her Scottish roots, but was also able to finish her work on Joseph Chandler and family of Duxbury, Mass before she left on her trip. That was an epic job, but she established through land records that Capt. John Chandler was Joseph’s grandson and we believe, Edmund (Joseph>Edmund, the immigrant’s grandson. She also researched Nathaniel and Mercy . Zebedee Chandler has often been named as their sibling, but there is very little information about him and that is why we would like to do a DNA test on a Zebedee descendant. That way we could at least determine if he was a member of the Edmund Chandler family.

Our new member, Jeff, who was not certain about his Chandler lineage, found out that he descends from William and Annis. I encouraged him to research the rest of his family tree as he may still descend from Edmund from another branch.

RESEARCH ALERT!

Ever find a young male in the 1820 US census that sent you on a fruitless search to find out who he was? That’s because one category is counted twice! I found this out the hard way when I was working on the Jonathan Chandler family in the 1820 US census. A young man showed up who didn’t fit in and was throwing my research into disarray. With the 1820 census you only get name of the head of household and only age and gender categories for the rest.

A careful look at the 1820 census form, which is available free online, I noticed the categories “free white males between 16 and 18” and next to it “free white males of 16 and under 26”. I thought that overlap was a typo, but I Googled it and found that males 16 and 18 are counted twice. They are counted once in the first category and again in the second category. Why?The country wanted to know how many young males were available for military service.

To read about this and other peculiarities of 1810, 1820 and 1830 US censuses, try the site below.
1820 Census Records: History and How to Use Them

THE “OTHER” JONATHAN CHANDLER FAMILY OF POLAND, MAINE

(Judah>Joseph>Joseph>Edmund, the immigrant)

A circumstantial reconstruction of a family

Carol May

Research by Carol May, Steve Chandler and Sharron Ross

We have touched on this “other” Jonathan Chandler and his family previously, but we have more information and we were able to do an in depth study. This is a circumstantial study and while we have compelling circumstantial evidence for some of the children, it is much weaker for others. Children may be dropped or others added if new evidence surfaces or mistakes are found. As we are a research group, let us know if you find mistakes or new information either supporting or refuting what is presented here.

When our group first started, the focus was on the large Jonathan Chandler family which included sons, John, Reuben, Ichabod, Avira and Nathaniel and their families. They migrated from Duxbury to the Minot/Poland area of Maine in the years after the Revolutionary War Minot was part of Poland. Later we found more Edmund Chandler descendants who migrated to that area.

However, there were still a few stray Chandlers in local records that didn’t match up with any family in the Minot/Poland area. The “strays” in the early records of Minot/Poland were Reuben and his children, Anna, Jacob and possibly my Rebecca. There may be other “strays” yet undiscovered.

We got our first big break when Steve, who lives in adjacent New Gloucester, took a bicycle trip to the Empire Cemetery in Poland, Maine and stopped to take pictures of the grave stones.

Buried in that cemetery were more mystery Chandlers. They were: Aunt Rachel, Rufus, Reuben, and Jonathan, Jr. Also, there were spouses and children.

Now we had seven parentless Chandlers and with wives and children. Who did they belong to?

Off to the censuses to try to find where this growing group of mystery Chandlers came from. The 1820 US census for Poland, Maine showed a Jonathan Chandler and family, but a closer look revealed that he was not the Jonathan Chandler of the 1810 US census for Poland, Maine. The Jonathan Chandler of the 1810 census was the patriarch of the Chandler clan who had come from Duxbury post- Revolutionary War and he had died in 1818.

Before moving to Poland this new Jonathan Chandler and his family appeared in the 1790, 1800 and 1810 US censuses for North Yarmouth, Maine. The early censuses showed only the name of the head of household and only a tally of males and females by age group for the rest. The Empire cemetery Chandlers and the stray Chandlers in local records fit right into the census counts for Jonathan Chandler’s household. A Eureka moment!

According to North Yarmouth, Maine birth records, Jonathan was born Dec. 14, 1750 to Judah and Rebecca (Seabury) Chandler. His lineage going back to Edmund starting with Jonathan is: Jonathan>Judah Chandler + Rebecca Seabury> Joseph Chandler + Martha Hunt> Joseph Chandler + Mercy?> Edmund, the immigrant. His father, Judah was a coaster, sawmill operator, timber surveyor, Revolutionary War veteran and according to contemporary accounts, an industrious fellow.

As a coaster he sailed up and down the coast collecting raw material, especially pine for ship building, and delivering finished goods and supplies to the coastal towns. (See story about Runaround Pond in this issue for more about Judah).

Judah’s children settled the length of the Maine coast, which also makes researching them difficult. That independence had a downside for them as well because they didn’t have a large nearby extended family to count on for help as most early settlers had.

We have only the North Yarmouth record of Judah’s son Jonathan Chandler and Zeruiah Brown’s marriage intentions, but not the marriage record. Unless Zeruiah died and he married someone else, which is not likely, he probably married Zeruiah Brown sometime after intentions were filed in North Yarmouth, Maine on Nov. 21, 1778.

We know from the censuses that Jonathan and Zeruiah had a lot of children, but because many North Yarmouth records are missing, we don’t know their names.

By studying the grave stones, a contemporary written newspaper article, and number of children in the census records we can reassemble this family at least circumstantially. From our research it appears that not many of his several descendants survived past a couple of generations which could also explain the lack of information about this family. Jonathan survived his wife who died in 1826, but he was not enumerated in the 1830 census so he probably died before then.

From the “The Age” newspaper, this news item appeared:
CHANDLER Mrs 68y w/o Jonathan C, mother of 11ch, 7 of whom with husband survive at Poland ME on 29 Aug sermon by Elder JONES of Minot [19 Sept 1826]

We think that the surviving children of Jonathan and Zeruiah (Brown) Chandler as of Zeruiah’s death on August 29, 1826 were: Rachel, Rebecca, Jacob, Anna, Reuben and Jonathan, Jr. and possibly a “mystery girl”. That makes seven children. Rufus died a few months before his mother’s death, which would make eight children. There were two boys and two girls from the censuses that appeared to have died young. We do not know their names. That would make 12 children, one more than the newspaper story. One of the unknown children may have been a visitor, or an error in the census, or the newspaper story may have been in error.
The children in order of birth appear to be:

One unknown male who probably died young because he could only be found in the 1790 US census.
Rachel Chandler born Feb. 1781, calculated from gravestone.
Anna (Chandler) Bailey born before 1787, calculated from the 1820 census.

Rebecca (Chandler) Snow born 1787, calculated from gravestone.
Jacob Chandler born, either Feb. 20 1787 (Rebecca’s twin?), or March 1788 calculated from gravestone.

Rufus Chandler born abt. July 16, 1789, calculated from gravestone.
Reuben Chandler born April 1794, calculated from gravestone
One unknown male Chandler who died young before the 1810 census.

Three unknown Chandler girls Two who appeared to have to have been born after the 1790 census and who died before the 1810 census. The third, and our “mystery girl”, was also born between 1790 and 1800. The mystery girl probably survived, at least until 1826 when her mother died, and was one of the seven surviving children. Mystery girl probably died or married before the 1830 census because she does not appear with the Chandlers in that census.

Jonathan Chandler, Jr. born 1803, calculated from gravestone.
Below is a summary of the children by group:

JONATHAN, JR., REUBEN, RUFUS AND AUNT RACHEL

This is the group buried in the Empire Cemetery (see detailed list in the reference section at the end) and whose circumstantial link to Jonathan and Zeruiah seems the strongest. The only other Chandler family living in Poland, Maine and who also had members buried in the Empire cemetery was Alden Chandler and family and we have already identified them.

So by process of elimination, Jonathan, Jr., his wife, Reuben, and Aunt Rachel, all buried in a row next to each other, and by other evidence, appear to be siblings and the children of Jonathan Chandler.

JONATHAN, JR.

There were only two Jonathan Chandlers in Poland, Maine during that era so it seems logical that Jonathan, Jr. was the son of Jonathan and Zeruiah. If there were more Jonathan Chandlers, questions could be raised because in the old days “junior” could mean just a younger person of the same name and not necessarily related. Jonathan, Jr. may have also been following the more modern custom of retaining he suffix, junior even if his father had already passed away.

: Cynthia L. wife of Jonthan Jr.

We know that Jonathan, Jr. married Cynthia because of the grave stone, but haven’t found a record of the marriage. She was Cynthia Lane daughter of Josiah Lane and Abigail Rowe Cleaves of Poland, Maine, according to Royal River families, a collection of vital records from the Androscoggin Historical Society.
Jonathan, Jr. and Cynthia had children, Cyrus and Mary J. Chandler. Neither ever married and they are buried in the same row as their parents and both of their death certificates name Jonathan as their father. Jonathan, Jr. and Cynthia may have had another daughter, but either she died before the 1850 census or married. Jonathan, Jr. died at only 37 years old and his widow, Cynthia, died at 44 years old.

REUBEN

Reuben was our member, Sharron’s, brick wall for about 20 years. Her old post on one of the boards prompted me to contact her. Our member, Steve, and also Brother Arnold of the New Gloucester Shaker Colony had also wondered about Hewett and his father, Reuben’s, origins. Reuben didn’t fit into any of the local known Chandler families of Minot/Poland or of New Gloucester, Maine. Reuben is buried between the grave of Jonathan, Jr.’s wife, Cynthia, and the grave of Jonathan, Jr.’s son, Cyrus, in the Empire cemetery. Reuben’s name also appears in Minot records as the father of several children. Next issue we will feature Reuben and Mary (Parcher) Chandler and their family including census records and vital records for their children.

RACHEL

: Rachel Chandler

Rachel Chandler’s grave stone actually says “Aunt Rachel Chandler.” It appears from the census that she lived with Jonathan, Jr. and his family. Later on she lived with Jonathan, Jr.’s children, nephew Cyrus and niece Mary J. and her sister-in-law, Sarah (Rufus widow) according to the 1860 US census for Danville, Maine. Rachel was buried next to Jonathan, Jr. in the Empire Cemetery.

RUFUS

: Rufus Chandler

Rufus, his wife and children’s graves were marked by a single nearby obelisk with each of their names inscribed upon it. Rufus also died young in 1826 at only 36. Minot vital records show that Rufus married Sarah Eaton Bradbury in Minot, Maine on Nov. 4, 1818.

: Claeb and Simon N. sons of Rufus and Sarah.

: Rufus C. son of Rufus and Sarah

Rufus and Sarah’s son, Jonathan C. Chandler died single at age 31. Rufus and Sarah’s children, Caleb Cushman, Simon Noyes and Rufus Clement, also died young and without issue. Their births were recorded in Minot vital records. It appears that Rufus’ line died out with the death of his children.

The 1860 US census for Danville, Maine shows that apparently Rufus’ widow, Sarah, went to live with who we believe was her nephew, Cyrus, niece, Mary J., and her sister-in-law Rachel. They were enumerated on the same page and five houses away from Jacob and Thankfull (Higgins) Chandler. From its style and fancy appearance, it is my hunch that the obelisk was erected not when Rufus died, but at later date when the family had more money.

This next group was not buried in the Empire Cemetery and the circumstantial evidence varies and gets much thinner.

ANNA

Anna does fit into the censuses for the Jonathan Chandler family and according to her marriage record she was from North Yarmouth which is where Jonathan’s family came from. There were several Chandler families (all descended from Edmund) living in North Yarmouth; however Jonathan and his family were the only ones that moved to the Minot/Poland area. Even though we have not been able to link Anna to one of these other families, many North Yarmouth birth records are missing leaving the possibility that she was from one of these other families.
Anna married Moses Bailey. Marriage intentions were filed Feb. 17, 1815 in Minot. The marriage was recorded in Cumberland, Cumberland Maine March 23, 1815. Does that mean that she was from one of the other North Yarmouth area families, or was Jonathan’s family still in the process of moving, or was it just where the minister recorded it? We don’t know.
Anna and Moses lived in Minot which is adjacent to Poland. Her children were Lucinda, Abigail, Hannah, Ann, Emily, Moses, Charles, Davis, George and Rufus C. Could Rufus C. Bailey have been named after her possible brother or nephew?

REBECCA

This is my personal brick wall. Rebecca married Jonathan Snow in Minot, Maine on Jan. 12, 1815. Her gravestone at Maquiot Cemetery in Brunswick, Maine reads that she died November 18, 1844 at 57 years which would make her birth year 1787. Jacob’s grave stone reads that he was born in 1788, but Danville records say he was born in 1787. So it is possible that they may have been twins depending on which record is correct, or it is possible that they were not siblings at all.

There is a lot of evidence stacked in favor of her being the daughter of Abel Chandler (not Rev. Abel) and Sarah (Weston) Chandler, but there are a few huge clues that now swing toward Jonathan as being her father. In the 1880 census she was listed as being born in Maine in her son’s enumeration in that census and she may not fit into the 1790 census for Abel Chandler’s family in Massachusetts. All of Abel’s children were born in Massachusetts.

There was one line about Jonathan Chandler’s daughter, Rebecca, dying in Brunswick that I read that on a web site which had a long running list of events that appeared to have been taken from 19^th century newspapers. The site appears to be gone now, so I can’t check where they got the information. Also, years ago when I first was starting out in genealogy I came across an old family tree entry, from the now long gone Gendex, possibly taken from an old Bible, that had listed her parents and two children born in Minot. I can’t remember their names. The two children must have died before they moved to Brunswick, Maine where my gg-grandmother was born. I was too naïve at the time to realize that they were writing about my Rebecca so I erased the note that I had made. I didn’t know then that Rebecca lived in Minot before moving to Brunswick. I was also being steered way off course by bad information on the internet. I learned the hard way and what we have all learned, that internet family trees can be full of mistakes and that they copy each other’s mistakes. Rebecca had two children, Abiezer F. Snow and Elvira D. Snow (my gg-grandmother), who survived to have children. At present Rebecca fits better into Jonathan Chandler’s family although it is possible that she may not stay there. Eventually, I will do a story on Abel and Sarah (Weston) Chandler’s children in the future and do another comparison of information.

JACOB

: The headstones of Jacob and his wife, Thankful, stand side by side.

According to Danville, Maine records he was born in North Yarmouth February 20, 1787, but those records may not be accurate. There is a conflict of dates as his grave stone indicates that he was born in March 1788.

: Jacob Chandler

Jacob Chandler lived in Poland, Danville and Auburn, Maine according several censuses; however, I don’t think that he moved because part of Poland became Danville which became Auburn. He also lived fairly close to (about five houses away according to the census) Cyrus, Mary J., Rachel and Sara. They were Jacob’s possible nephew, niece, sister and sister-in-law respectively.

: Thankful Chandler

Jacob married Thankfull Higgins August 13, 1818 in Danville, Maine. Jacob and Thankfull only had two children, Rozilla and Joanna according to vital records. Rozilla died young and single. Joann married John C. Lane, who in addition to being a farmer was also a census taker. The 1850 census shows their daughter and son-in-law living with them in Poland, Maine. Many years later the situation was reversed with Jacob and Thankfull moving to nearby New Gloucester to live with them.
Jacob’s gravestone in the Hotel Road Cemetery in Auburn, Maine says that he died May 10, 1872 at 84 ys 2 ms. That would put his birth year at 1788. Danville records say he was born on February 20, 1787 in North Yarmouth, Maine. Which date is correct?

THE MYSTERY GIRL

While researching Jacob and Thankfull Chandler and the Hotel Road Cemetery, I found Rufus C. Lane was also buried there. Was Jacob related to him? Jacob’s daughter married a Lane and his possible sister-in-law was Cynthia (Lane) Chandler. Rufus C. Lane had a brother named Chandler Lane and another named Seth Chandler Lane.

Their parents were Simeon Lane and apparently Charlotte Chandler (still looking for more proof). Could Charlotte be the “mystery girl”? It turns out that she was born in 1802 putting her out of the running. However, she may have been Charlotte Chandler, daughter of Joel (another Edmund descendant) and Permelia Lincoln Chandler. She later married a Briggs.

There were also two other Charlotte Chandlers about the same age. One married John Charles and the other married Capt. David Harwood who lived in the same area as Joel and Permelia.
So we are still looking for the “mystery girl.’ Always a new mystery to solve and an old one to revisit.

RESEARCH SOURCES:
My notes and comments are in parentheses.
1790 US CENSUS NORTH YARMOUTH, CUMBERLAND COUNTY, MAINE

Jonathan Chandler
1 male of 16 and over including head of family (Jonathan)
3 males under 16 (Jacob, Rufus, one unknown)
4 females (Zeruiah, Rachel, Rebecca, Anna)

1800 US CENSUS NORTH YARMOUTH, CUMBLERLAND COUNTY, MAINE

Jonathan Chandler
2 males under 10 (Reuben and one unknown)
2 males 10 to under 16 (Jacob, Rufus)
1 male over 45 (Jonathan)
3 females under 10 (all unknown)
1 female 10 to 16 (Rebecca)
2 females 16 to under 26 (Rachel, Anna)
1 female 26-45 Zeruiah

1810 US CENSUS NORTH YARMOUTH, CUMBERLAND COUNTY, MAINE

Jonathan Chandler
1 male under 10 (Jonathan, Jr. born 1803)
1 male 10 to under 16 (Reuben)
2 males 16 to under 26 (Rufus, Jacob)
1 male over 45 (Jonathan)
1 female 10 to under 16 (our mystery girl)
2 females 16 to under 26 ( Anna, Rebecca)
No Rachel
1 female over 45 (Zeruiah)

1820 US CENSUS POLAND, CUMBERLAND COUNTY, MAINE

Jonathan Chandler
1 male 16 to under 18 (Jonathan, Jr.)
2 males 16 to under 26 (Reuben, Jonathan, Jr.)
1 male over 45 (Jonathan)
1 female 16 to under 26 (our mystery girl)
No Rachel
1 female over 45 (Zeruiah)
Engaged in agriculture. (Jonathan was a farmer)

1830 US CENSUS POLAND, CUMBERLAND COUNTY, MAINE

Jonathan Chandler (JR.)
1 male under 5 yrs. (Cyrus, son)
1 male 20- under 30 (Jonathan, Jr.)
1 female under 5 yrs (Mary J., daughter)
1 female 70- under 80 ( Cynthia, Jonathan’s wife wrong age or Rachel, Jonathan’s aunt, also wrong age, or a boarder?)

(There should be wife, Cynthia unless she was away and not counted.)

1830 US CENSUS MINOT, CUMBERLAND COUNTY, MAINE

Sarah Chandler
2 males under 5 yrs (Jonathan C., Rufus C., Rufus’ and Sarah’s twin sons)
1 male 10- under 15 (Caleb C. Rufus’ and Sarah’s son)
1 female 30- under 40 (Sarah, Rufus’ widow)

1840 US CENSUS FOR POLAND, CUMBERLAND, MAINE

Jonathan Chandler
1 male 10 under 15 (Cyrus, son)
1 male 30 under 40 (Jonathan)
1 female 5 under 10 (? a boarder?, a daughter who married before the 1850 census?)
1 female 10 under 15 (Mary J., daughter)
1 female 20 under 30 (a boarder?)
1 female 30 under 40 (Cynthia, Jonathan’s wife)
1 female 50 and under 60 (Rachel, Jonathan’s aunt)

1850 US POLAND, CUMBERLAND COUNTY, MAINE

Jacob Chandler, age 60, farmer, born Maine

Thankful Chandler, age 56, born Maine
John C. Lane, age 29, farmer, born Maine (Jacob and Thankful’s son-in-law
Joann Lane, born Maine (Jacob and Thankful’s only surviving child and who had children)
Emily, Lane, age 12, born Maine

Cyrus Chandler (Jonathan, Jr. and Cynthia (Lane) Chandler’s son) age 22, farmer
Rachel Chandler (Cyrus and Mary F’s aunt) age 66
Mary F. Chandler age 19 (actually Mary J.)

Jonathan C. (Cummings) Chandler age 22, ( He was Rufus and Sarah (Bradbury) Chandler’s son and also also Rachel’s nephew and Cyrus and Mary’s cousin. They were living next door to Cyrus in this census)
Sarah (Bradbury) Chandler, age 57, mother

1860 US DANVILLE CENSUS, ANDROSCOGGIN, MAINE

(It appears that Danville was set off from Poland)
Cyrus Chandler, age 31, farmer, born Maine
Rachel, age 79, (Cyrus’ aunt) born Maine
Sarah, age 65 (Cyrus’ aunt by marriage to Rufus) born Maine
Mary J., age 29 (Cyrus’ sister) born Maine

(Five houses away in this same census)
Jacob Chandler, age 72, farmer, born Maine
Thankful, age 67, born Maine

FROM THE EMPIRE CEMETERY, POLAND, MAINE

These Chandlers were buried next to each other and in this order. There were members of the Alden Chandler family also buried in this cemetery, but were in distant area. Knowing what the headstones look like, especially if they match, and who was next to who are vital clues which can usually only be obtained by walking the cemetery on foot which Steve did.

Aunt Rachel, Jonathan, Jr. and Reuben were siblings. Cynthia was Jonathan, Jr.’s wife and Cyrus and Mary J. were their children. These are individual markers and are listed in order as they appear in a row in the cemetery.

Aunt Rachel Chandler died January 20, 1864 at age 82 years 11 months
Jonathan Chandler, Jr. Father died Dec. 13, 1840 aged 37 years
Cynthia L. Chandler, Mother wife of Jonathan Chandler died June 27, 1844 age 41 ys 9 ms
Reuben Chandler died Jan. 13, 1847 at 52 yrs. 9 ms.
Cyrus Chandler died Jan. 16, 1903 age 75 ys. 4 ms.
Mary J. Chandler died Jan. 25, 1907 age 77 ys. 18 ds

Rufus wife and children’s names are on a single obelisk marker.

Rufus Chandler died May 26, 1826 at 36 ys. 10 ms. 10 ds.
Sarah E. his wife died Jan. 14, 1864 age 68 ys. 6 mos. 21 ds.
Simon Noyes Chandler died July 11, 1825 age 4 ys. 27 ds.
Caleb C. (Cushman) Chandler died June 3, 1843 age 24 ys. 6 ds.
Rufus C. (Clement) Chandler died Oct 10, 1844 age 17 ys. 10 ms. 20 ds. (twin)
Jonathan C. Chandler died Nov. 10, 1858 age 31 ys. 11 ms. 20 ds. (twin)

*********

Heritage Quest for the early censuses available free from many libraries. I used this as a census source.
www.familysearch.org Many vital record have been added as well as several of the censuses. I also used this as a census and vital record source. There is also an ancestral file with Charlotte Chandler and family in it.
History of Poland, Maine

Historical Resume of Town of Minot, Maine
Poland, Androscoggin County, Maine | Maine Genealogy

Maquoit Cemetery, Brunswick, Maine Where Rebecca (Chandler) Snow was buried
Find A Grave Search Results for Hotel Road Cemetery, Auburn, Maine

RUNAROUND POND AND JUDAH CHANDLER

(Joseph>Joseph>Edmund, the immigrant)

Carol May

Photographs by Steve Chandler

You wouldn’t think that Judah Chandler could be inadvertently responsible for scaring the daylights out of people worldwide over two centuries after his death. No, not as a “ghost” haunting Runaround Pond in Durham, Maine, where he lived, but by creating inspiration for horror novelist Stephen King who grew up in the area.

Judah Chandler is said to have accidentally created Runaround Pond, which in turn over two centuries later inspired novelist Stephen King to write books using the pond as a setting.
Judah Chandler (Joseph>Joseph>Edmund, the immigrant) was an industrious, resourceful fellow, born In Duxbury, Mass, and raised in North Yarmouth, Maine. He was a Revolutionary War veteran, a coaster who sailed up and down the sea coast bringing the raw materials out and finished goods and supplies in, a lumber surveyor, and saw mill operator.

He spent time up and down the whole Maine coast building saw mills and helping found towns like Jonesboro, Maine. His sons, including Jonathan Chandler, this issue’s featured Chandler, settled the length of Maine. There is a Chandler Bay in Jonesport in northern Maine where Judah Chandler is believed to have been the first settler and a Chandler River in Jonesboro named after him.Back down in Durham, Chandler stream was also named after him. Only when Judah first settled in Durham was it called Royalsborough after General Isaac Royall.

Chandler stream is what feeds into what is now Runaround Pond. Judah had first settled in Royalsborough in 1766 and built the first saw mill in the western part of the town on what is still known as Chandler’s stream, a tributary of the Royal River. The ruins of the dam and perhaps even his house can still be seen. According to Steve, our member who lives nearby, Judah wisely chose the narrowest point in the stream to build the mill and created the dam with expertly cut and set granite stones. However, the story goes that he built the dam so high that the water ran around it and accidentally created what was to become known as Runaround Pond, a long meandering pond set in a marshy field.

Judah left Royalsborough and continued carrying on business up and down the Maine coast. He finally returned to Royalsborough, later re-named Durham, to build a second mill. He was in the lumbering business and sent ton-lumber to Harrisicket (Freeport, Maine) by the Old Mast Road. When he became too old and infirm to work and having no living family nearby, he and his wife sadly became wards of the town. He died in 1802 and is buried there near his son, John who died many years earlier.

Runaround Pond which was created by his first mill is what is remembered today. It is now Durham’s official recreation area. It is a very long, shallow meandering pond providing canoeing, kayaking, picnicking, and hiking in the warm months, and skating, snowshoeing and cross country skiing in the winter.

Horror novelist, Stephen King, moved to Durham, Maine when he was 11 years old with his mother and brother, his father having abandoned the family. His mother’s roots were deep in Maine going back to the early 1600s. She was born in Scarborough, Maine. No Chandlers in her line, but many pioneer Maine families such as Libby, Waterhouse and Foss. His mother barely made ends meet with low paying jobs. Like most youngsters, Stephen explored his surroundings including Runaround Pond. This pond made a huge impression on him as memories of it fueled several of his novels.

The story goes that Stephen while playing either in or near Runaround Pond had a leech attach itself to his navel. That experience alone could inspire and entire novel. That leech memory was featured in his novels “The Tommyknockers” and in the book “The Body” which became the movie “Stand By Me.” “The Body” was set in western Durham and Pownal, Maine.
However, in his novel “The Dead Zone,” Runaround Pond provides the impetus for the entire novel. In that, novel King writes about a very young Johnny Smith while he was just learning how to skate backward on Runaround Pond collides with a big kid playing hockey. Johnny is momentarily knocked out cold on the ice, but comes to with a big lump on his head and psychic powers which manifest themselves much later on in the unique scary style that Stephen King has mastered.

Depending on how you look at it, Runaround Pond is either a placid seemingly endlessly, meandering, quiet, Maine pond or sinister place of dark ledges and spooky nooks and crannies and, in winter, scary black ice.

If you can’t visit the pond, take a look at the pictures and then decide – scary place or quiet benign pond?

ANOTHER REV. ABEL CHANDLER SIGHTING AND A CORRECTION!

Tracking the Rev. Abel Chandler has become almost another hobby. This time Sharron sent a newspaper article about Rev. Abel Chandler and another wife who was named Harriet.

If the vital records and the newspaper account are accurate, Rev. Abel’s first wife died August 21, 1835 in Turner, Androscoggin County, Maine, then he married Harriet who died in 1838 in Peru, Oxford County, Maine, then he married again for a third time. With presumably the unknown third wife, Abel had a daughter, Louisa, who was born in Hebron, Maine on August 29, 1841 and who died the same day. We don’t know when the third wife died.

This appears to be the end of the wives, because he was single and living with some of his children, his grandchildren, and his daughter-in-law in the 1850 US census for Ohio. That’s a lot of wives in a short time. Either he had a very, very tragic life or mistakes were made in the newspaper story or Maine vital records or both. We have found serious mistakes in early Maine vital records previously.

From “The Age” newspaper 1838 edition:
Publishing Date: April 25, 1838
Mortuary Notice
In Peru, Mrs. Harriet, wife of Rev. Abel Chandler, aged 31

A correction regarding Rev. Abel’s grandson, Charles B. Chandler, he did marry Mary S. Harlow, but it was a different Charles B. Chandler who married Mary Merrill. Don’t you just love it when they have the same names!

DNA NEWS

Dick, who is a worldwide tracker of all Chandlers not just Edmund’s line, has been working diligently finding Chandlers both here and abroad to test. Most recently two Chandlers whose families originated in Kent, England have been tested. No match with Edmund for the first testee and we are waiting for results for the second testee. Although one of the testees is Australian and the other is American, they both share Kent roots and will likely match each other.

The Chandlers of Kent are of particular interest to our group for several reasons. There were many Chandlers that resided there and it was also a hotbed of religious descent and Edmund was an epic dissenter having fled to Leiden, Holland for religious reasons. Also, it is believed that Roger Chandler was related to Edmund as they both appeared in Dutch records in Leiden and they probably traveled together to the Plymouth Colony. Roger married Isabella Chilton on July 21, 1615 in St. Paul’s Canterbury, Kent, England. No record of Edmund’s marriage, another mystery.

There is no record of Roger’s or Edmund’s birth in Kent; however, researchers continue to look. Along with records being lost or destroyed over the years, dissenters being dissenters, often did not register births in the local parish register. In addition, when Edmund and Roger were born it was at the beginning of parishes keeping birth records, so they may have been born a little too soon to have had their births recorded.As Chandler is an occupational name neither Kent nor any other place in England has been ruled out as Edmund’s potential birth place. So the hunt for the English origins of Edmund Chandler continues through both DNA and written records.

THE CHANDLER FAMILY ASSOCIATION MEETING

: Dick Chandler’s Presentation at the Chandler Family Association Meeting

No, that’s not us, but is our sister group, The CFA who started out with descendants of John Chandler of 1610 Jamestown, Viriginia, but expanded to include other Chandler families from other areas when they found out not all early southern Chandlers descend from John Chandler of Jamestown.

Our member Cynthia, and also CFA member, attended their meeting on September 16^th Dallas, Texas. She is a rare bird who descends from both Edmund Chandler of Duxbury, Mass and John Chandler of Jamestown Virginia. She met southern distant cousins at the meeting. I am guessing that Cynthia filled them in on our Edmund Chandler of Duxbury, Massachusetts.

They were very well organized with information packets on the Chandler lineage on all of the participants and even a CFA water bottle! There were tables full of research material and a copy machine with tables and chairs arranged so people could study and share information. The CFA is a huge group – hundreds of members. Lots and lots of Chandlers in the south! They even have their own store with mouse pads, coffee cups, pens, highlighters, book markers and tote bags. We may be a tiny group by comparison, but we have accomplished a lot in a short time.

Being in Texas, of course they had a Texas barbeque. If they had been Yankees it might have been a clam bake! Our member and also CFA member and head of the Chandler one name study, Dick was there via SKYPE communicating from British Columbia, Canada over the internet answering questions.

DISCOVERING TREASURES AT FIND A GRAVE

by Barb Chandler

Cemeteries provide valuable information to genealogists. My article about discovering treasures at Find A Grave http://www.findagrave.com/ a worldwide virtual cemetery illustrates this resources riches.

If you know the state/country where your ancestor is buried plug their name into the search engine; and you might find the cemetery where they are buried, their birth and death date, an obituary, and links to memorials of parents and spouse, and a picture of their headstone.

All information on Find A Grave is provided by thousands of contributors who submit new listings, updates, corrections, photographs to the site daily.

If you decide to become a contributor and create a memorial to a person in your tree. You will need to join Find A Grave (it’s free). Once you’ve joined, and if you know for certain where your ancestor is buried the first thing you will need to do is search before creating a memorial. This step is to insure that a memorial hasn’t already been created.

Another way you can add to this resource is by becoming a photo volunteer and traveling to a nearby cemetery to take pictures of headstones in nearby cemeteries.

When I’ve visited Find A Grave some memorials that are already created have just the birth and death dates with nothing else. If I run across these and know the family members or have an obituary I ask the contributor to add these.

Rev. Abel. now has a memorial. Since we do not know where he is buried I created one using the word ‘other’ under burial options. His memorial is at; http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=78673552

As more genealogists contribute to this valuable resource more free material becomes available to researchers.

NEXT ISSUE

Chandler research took over the time and space for this issue so I couldn’t do the stories on the changes at Familysearch, and researching homesteads, but they will appear in a future issue.
Look for Part 2, and Reuben Chandler and the harsh life that his family led in the 1830’s and 40’s in the next issue.

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas and we should see you sometime in January.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler News, Uncategorized

July 27, 2011

SUMMER 2011 NEWS FROM EDMUND CHANDLER FAMILY by Carol May

Artist Howard Chandler Christy, grandson of Permelia Chandler, is our featured Edmund descendant this issue. If you go to the bottom of the article, there are places listed where you can get your very own copy of one of his posters starting at less than ten dollars. I did read a warning for those who collect original Howard Chandler Christy prints that some of them are not legitimate, but are just pages torn out of old books.
We also have news from the Southern California Genealogy Society Jamboree the second largest genealogy convention in the country, DNA news, tips on breaking through a brick wall, and more.

MEMBER NEWS

This issue we welcome new members, Ann from Maine, whoseYarmouth ancestors descended from Edmund’s son, Joseph, Susan of New Hampshire, who descends from Edmund’s son, Benjamin Chandler, and Jeffery of Florida who is in the process of finding out if he is an Edmund Chandler descendant or a descendant of William and Annis Chandler. If you wish to join the Edmund Chandler Family Association which will allow access to our on line library of over 1000 pages, got to www.edmundchandler.com for further information.

JAMBOREE NEWS

The Jamboree is the second largest genealogy gathering in the country with about 2000 people attending the three day event . I visited the booths set up by various genealogy groups – the Mayflower Society, the DAR, the Scottish, the Czechs, the Scandinavians and many more. The vendors were also out in force –Ancestry, (with free computer access and free help from their team who manned the booth) FTDNA, Rootsmagic, NEHGS and many more. There were also speakers, experts in their subjects from all over the world. Next issue I will have stories about what I learned at a couple of the lectures.

At the Civil War booth, I chatted with reinactors in full uniform. I talked to someone from Maine. We talked about Maine research and old time Maine surnames as I also have Maine ancestors, Rebecca Chandler being one of them. The fellow mentioned that he was from Northern Maine of French-Canadian ancestry. He said that the French Canadians settled there very early on, which most people are not aware of. I was trying to think of ways to help him with his Maine research when I noticed his name tag — “Dick Eastman”. “You’re not the Dick Eastman of the newsletter?” (over 60,000 readers) I asked. He said that he was and I replied that I was just a pipsqueak thinking that I was helping him out. He was most gracious. You can read Dick Eastman’s free newsletter or subscribe to his paid edition at the site below to read about the latest in genealogy.
Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter

DNA NEWS

At the FTDNA booth, I got a chance to talk with Bennett Greenspan, founder and CEO of FTDNA. I asked him if people in England were still hesitant and skeptical about DNA research. He said that with the big rise in interest in genealogy that the initial skepticism has faded, but in England, it is now more of a money issue because of the economy.

Our group is very interested in finding a match between Englishman and our Edmund group because it may give us a breakthrough in determining which part of England Edmund came from in addition to which English family he belongs to.

FTDNA is the company that does the DNA testing for the Chandler DNA Project which is co-sponsored by our group, the Edmund Chandler Family Association, and our sister group, The Chandler Family Association. Men who wish to participate in this painless, swab to the inside of the mouth and drop in a mailer YDNA test can get a price break on this test if they participate in the Chandler project. You can read more about the DNA project on our website, www.edmundchandler.com. Go to the left hand side and click DNA results.
Our member, Dick, who is not an Edmund descendant, but who tracks Chandlers worldwide, has been working on rounding up English Chandlers for DNA testing. Hopefully, eventually one will match our Edmund group.

We have interesting DNA news from Dick regarding Kate Middleton, the future Queen of England’s Chandler ancestry. No connection to the Edmund Chandler family, but an American connection was found.
Thank you Claudia Brocatto and Dick Chandler for allowing us to use the following story which first appeared in The Chandler Family Association’s, The Town Crier:

The Chandler DNA Project has identified a kinship link between the great-great-grandfather of the United Kingdom’s Princess Kate (officially titled the Duchess of Cambridge) and the founder of the Chandler Motor Company of Cleveland, Ohio. Kate’s great-grandmother, Edith May Chandler, who married Stephen Charles Goldsmith, was the daughter of Theophilus Benjamin Chandler. The Y-chromosome DNA of a living male descendant of Theophilus Benjamin Chandler has proved to be a kinship match with the DNA of a living male descendant of Frederick Charles Chandler II who founded the Chandler Motor Car Company in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1913. The company was sold to Hupp Motor Works in 1929.
The matching DNA results only became available on Easter Monday, four days before the Royal Wedding. The ancestral roots of Theophilus and Frederick lie in the area around Stroud in Gloucestershire, England – a Chandler stronghold for centuries.
Chandler is an occupational surname (from candle makers, ship and corn chandlers), so its bearers are not all genetically related. The DNA marker values distinguishing these two men represent the 62nd genetically distinct Chandler family discovered by the Chandler DNA Project.
Over 300 men have participated in this project so far.
Family Tree DNA – Genetic Genealogy Starts Here
Chandler DNA Project

HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY
An American artist

: Howard Chandler Christy

Chandler lineage: Howard Chandler Christy>Francis Marion Christy>Permelia Chandler>Daniel Chandler>Joseph Chandler>Benjamin Chandler>Edmund Chandler, the immigrant

Howard Chandler Christy is probably the most famous artist of the last century that almost no one has ever heard of today, although he was a superstar of his time. While his name might not ring a bell, his works still do. His most famous painting (above) is “The Signing of the Declaration of Independence” He also created World War I and II recruiting posters and the ultimate American girl of his time, The Christy Girl, and so much more.

Howard was born in a log cabin on Meig’s Creek, Morgan County, Ohio to Francis Marion Christy and Mary Matilda (Bone) Christy on January 10, 1873. When he was two years old, the family moved to a farm in near Zanesville in Duncan Falls, Muskingum County, Ohio. Both Morgan County and especially Muskingum County were home to pioneering Chandler families.

Most biographies of Howard Chandler Christy say that his mother was a Chandler, when in actuality it was his paternal grandmother, Permelia, whose surname was Chandler. She married John Christy who probably died when Francis Marion Christy was very young. As a boy Howard’s nickname was “Smiley” and when he was older he went by the nickname of“Poppy.”
Howard’s family was aware of their early New England roots and that they were eleventh generation descendants of Capt. Miles Standish. Howard’s ancestor, Joseph Chandler married Elizabeth Delano, the great-granddaughter of Miles Standish. Howard was always a patriotic supporter of our country which was reflected in so much of his art work.

It was Joseph Chandler, grandson of Edmund the immigrant, who left Duxbury for Litchfield Connecticut in 1745. That move began the westward migration of this branch of the Chandler family. Joseph’s children moved to New Hampshire, where his son, Benjamin, was killed in the Revolutionary War. Benjamin’s son, also named Joseph, moved to Vermont where his son Daniel was born. Daniel moved to Ohio where his daughter, Permelia, was born.
Howard Chandler Christy’s grandfather, John Christy, probably died before the 1850 US census. The 1850 US census for St. Clair, Butler County Ohio, shows only Permelia and her children, with the exception of older brother Albert, listed. Albert was living with his grandparents, Daniel and Mary Chandler in Morgan County, Ohio according to the 1850 US census.
By the 1860 US census for Morgan, Morgan County, Ohio, Permelia and her children including Francis Marion Christy were now also living with Daniel and Mary Chandler on their farm. Permelia’s name has also shown up misspelled as Pamelia and Pamela in subsequent censuses.

Howard’s middle name of Chandler was most likely his father’s way of honoring Permelia and Daniel and Mary Chandler, because he was raised by them.
Howard’s artistic ability became apparent at a very early age as he was sketching animals when he was only 3 years old and by the time he was 4 years old, his father bought him his first set of watercolors. He had little interest in academics and left school at the age of 12 and went to work on his family’s farm. His favorite activities centered on the Muskingum River where he played, sketched, painted, fished and rode the paddle-wheeled steamboats.
With $100 of his own savings and $200 from his parents, Howard left the farm in Duncan Falls, Ohio at only 16 years of age to study art in New York . He enrolled at the Art Students League and was a student of William Merritt Chase, but the money ran out and he had to return home.

He spent two years in Ohio earning money doing farm work and then received a loan from a wealthy relative which allowed him to resume his studies with Chase. His art classes lasted two years including summers in Long Island, New York where drawing and painting outdoors were emphasized which meshed perfectly with Howard’s love of the outdoors and sketching nature. Chase was a devotee of the “plein air” painting movement. Plein air is a French term for in the open air which when applied to painting, meant painting outdoors
In 1893, Howard entered the National Academy of Design and won two prizes in draftsmanship.

After attending the Art Students League, Howard attended the National Academy of Design. It was most likely while there that the standout student caught the eye of the editors of “The Century” magazine. He received his first commission from that magazine at only age 22.

He had the good fortune not only being extremely talented, but of being at the right place at the right time as it was the beginning of the golden age for illustrators because of technological advances in reproducing color illustrations.

Howard enjoyed his study of fine art, but his funds were running low again and not wanting to borrow more money from his family, he realized that he had to make a living, and illustrations offered a better source of income than fine art.
He developed a relationship with the top publishers of the time, which included G.P. Putnam and Sons, Dodd and Mead, Life, Scribners Magazine, Harpers New Monthly Magazine and others.

: The Capture of El Caney by Howard Chandler Christy

He had just finished illustrating a series on the Revolutionary War for Scribner’s Magazine, when the Spanish American War broke out in 1898. He was only 25 when the magazine sent him to Cuba to cover the Spanish American War as an illustrator correspondent. He met Teddy Roosevelt on the way and drew many illustrations of the Rough Riders. He sketched battles where he was an eyewitness and as well as the day to day activities of the soldiers. He sent his sketches back to the US to be published in magazines.

: Soliders Dream by Howard Chandler Christy

After the war, he was back in New York labeled as a military illustrator. He didn’t want to be stuck in that pigeon hole, so he introduced what became his signature, “The Christy Girl.” The first “Christy Girl” appeared in a drawing entitled, “The Soldier’s Dream” which appeared in Scribner’s. It depicted a beautiful girl in the pipe smoke of a war hero.
Christy’s own comment on what a “Christy Girl” should be was, “High-bred, aristocratic and dainty though not always silken-skirted; a woman with tremendous self-respect.”

This was the beginning of Howard’s depiction of the ideal American woman – modern, educated, outdoor and sports-loving. Men liked her because of her beauty and charm while women liked her for her independence, freedom and air of adventure. Of course the other famous “girl” of the times was, the “Gibson Girl” painted by Charles Dana Gibson, one of his contemporaries.
There was no one actual “Christy Girl” nor “Gibson Girl.” They were the artist’s interpretation of their models. In fact, Howard married one of his models, Maybelle Thompson. He and Gibson were the stars of their day, unlike today where the models are the superstars.

Howard’s Christy Girl began appearing everywhere, and he in turn became both famous and rich earning an estimated $50,000 in 1910. One contract alone with William Randolph Hearst paid him $18,000 per year in 1912. McClure’s Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Collier’s and Hearst all featured illustrations by Howard.

His lovely Christy Girl graced magazine covers, sold hats and dresses and appeared in enlistment posters for World War I encouraging young men to join the navy and marines and people to buy War Bonds. His book illustrations were done primarily between the years of 1895 to 1920.
Even the move back to his home in far- from- the- mainstream Ohio didn’t diminish his ability to get top paying commissions. He enlarged his childhood home called, The Barracks, and added a studio. It is a now a National Historic Monument. He moved back to New York in 1915 where he created posters for the war effort. In 1917 he moved into the Hotel des Artistes’ where he built a studio.

After World War I, he divorced his wife and married Nancy May Palmer who was introduced to him by Charles Dana Gibson. She modeled for him and her face was the face of the Christy Girl for years.

: Dogulas McArthur by Howard Chandler Christy

In the 1920s he began painting portraits of the rich and famous.

With the Roaring Twenties in full swing, he became a ‘in demand’ portrait artist. Anybody who was somebody wanted their portrait painted. He painted dictator, Benito Musselini, Crown Prince Umberto of Italy, Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, the World War I ace, humorist Will Rogers, aviator, or aviatrix to use the term of the day, Amelia Earhart and US presidents, Franklin Roosevelt, Coolidge, Hoover, Polk, Van Buren, Garfield, and the magazine and newspaper tycoon and wife, Mr. and Mrs. William Randolph Hearst. He traveled to Europe, mingled with celebrities, and was busy with exhibitions and commissions. Norman Rockwell said of Christy, “The short, stocky, pugnacious Christy, boomingly cheerful, publicity and he are right for each other … like cole slaw and church suppers.”

The Great Depression not only devastated the nation, but Howard also became very depressed. The champagne days of the 1920s were over. Now he painted what was close to his heart – landscapes and beautiful women. Again, a beautiful model, artist and former Zeigfield dancer named Elise Ford, caught his eye and became his companion as well as model for the next 15 years. She was also the mother of his daughter.

When he added murals and screens to his repertoire, his career flowered again. He painted the murals of nudes at the Café des Artistes in New York which was on the ground floor of his studio building.

His commissions now were of paintings depicting historical events, commemorative paintings and also celebrity paintings.
His most famous painting is “The Signing of the Constitution” which hangs in the rotunda of the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. After much Congressional wrangling, Congress passed a bill to finance a painting for the sesquicentennial of the signing of the Constitution. The painting depicts the signers of the Constitution in Independence Hall in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. It was a $30,000 commission for Christy.
It was a huge undertaking for Christy both in size and complexity. It was an 18-by-26-foot canvas.

: Signing of the Constitution of the US by Howard Chandler Christy

If you go to this site, you can roll your mouse over the picture and find out the identity of each person at the signing.. Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States by Howard Chandler Christy

Howard researched the dress of the times including borrowing George Washington’s breeches from the Smithsonian. He depicted artifacts and furniture from delegates and included Jefferson’s books. To depict the light in the room properly, he went to Independence Hall in September at the same time of day that the Constitution was signed to study how the light angled into the room and onto the glass chandelier.

The painting was so big that he painted in the sail loft of the Washington Navy Yard. He used enlisted men as models for the figures. He spent five years of research and seven months of painting “The Signing of the Constitution” When it was put into its Azeglio Pancani gold-leaf finished frame, it was an immense 20-by-30 feet in size. In May 1940 it was dedicated in the Rotunda of the Capitol where it was on view for 16 months. Being in Washington, more debate took place over where it should be hung permanently. Finally, it was decided to install it in the east grand stairway of the house where it can be seen today.

He remained an active artist and was still painting in the 1950s. Howard Chandler Christy died peacefully at age 80 in 1952 in his Hotel des Artistes’ studio in New York on March 3, 1952.

RESOURCES

Howard Chandler Christy (1873 – 1952) – Find A Grave Memorial

Lafayette College – Howard Chandler Christy Papers – Biographical Sketch

A very nice biography complete with a photograph of Howard Chandler Christy. Unfortunately, there is that same mistake that shows up everywhere regarding his mother. She was not a Chandler. His paternal grandmother was a Chandler.

Howard Chandler Christy Biography

Another nice biography with illustrated with Christy’s own works. Interestingly, he illustrated the Longfellow poem, “The Courtship of Miles Standish” of whom he descends through the Chandler line.

Howard Chandler Christy, H C Christy
A big selection of best and most vividly colored illustrations which are copyrighted so we can’t use them here, but you can take a look by clicking the above link.

Howard Chandler Christy Prints and Posters at Art.com
You can buy a copy of a Howard Chandler Christy poster here starting at less than $10.

Amazon.com: Howard Chandler Christy Scene at the Signing of the Constitution Art Poster Print – 13×19: Home & Garden
You can buy a copy of “The Signing of the Constitution” by Howard Chandler Christy for less than $5.00 at Amazon.
NMAI: Howard Chandler Christy

A brief biography along with some very nice illustrations of his work.

Signing of the Constitution by Howard Chandler Christy
This is a government site that gives a lot of back story on the creation of the painting.

Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States by Howard Chandler Christy
Explains who the signers were and why he painted them the way he did.

UPDATE ON ABEL CHANDLER’S GENEALOGY

The following obituary was found on USGenWeb Story County Iowa;

“Mr. Able Chandler died at the county poor farm on Monday last. Aged 83 years. Rev. Thornbrue officiated at the funeral on Tuesday.” From Story County Watchman October 14, 1881

There are two official records of a Phebey Matney marrying an Abel Chandler. The first one was in Missouri in 1846 and the second was in 1860 in Illinois. It seems very unlikely that there were two sets of them. There may be another explanation and vital records do have mistakes. This remains a mystery. It doesn’t seem really likely that our Abel Chandler, who descends from Edmund, married a Phebey Matney as the 1850 US census for Illinois shows our Abel but not Phebey. The 1860 US census for Illinois shows a Phebey Chandler with a daughter born in Missouri, but no Abel.

It does appear also that Abel’s daughter, Louise or Louisa, died young then he had a second daughter also named Louise who died shortly after she was born.

Rev. Abel is at rest, however the mystery surrounding his marriage and family members are ongoing.

TIPS FOR BREAKING DOWN BRICK WALLS

When our group was first formed, I used to joke that our alternative name should be the Brick Wall Club as most of us had a brick wall and that brick wall was usually a Chandler. We have broken down many of those brick walls since then.

Here are a few tips on breaking down a brick wall, including how to do a history search.
1. Don’t be too quick to accept information as gospel, that includes family history. Just because you heard those stories for ages does not make them completely true. There is usually truth in family stories only it is often mixed up, sometimes really mixed up. Two of our members were stymied for a long time because they didn’t realize that they had two ancestors with the same first name and the information had become so garbled that it appeared that there was only one person.

2 . If concentrating on just one ancestor is getting you nowhere broaden your search. Look for relatives. Look to see who the relatives married. Check children’s names, sometimes the mother’s maiden name may show up as a first name. Siblings of one family often married siblings of another family so check them out.

3. Be flexible about names. You may have always heard of your great grandfather as “Henry” for example, but that may have been a nickname or a middle name. Also, as you go through the censuses, he may have gone from one nickname to another nickname, or from his first name to his middle name and back again, or you may only find initials.

3. Still stuck? Go broader still. When you are dealing with any state in its earliest frontier incarnation, it can be a complete mystery where these people came from. This is where switching over from a genealogical search to an historical search can save you.

Do a Google search and a Google book search of the history of the town, county, or region to find out where the people came from originally. For a plain Google search, type in the name of the town or the county and the word “history” and your ancestor’s full name or last name. You may get lucky and find your ancestor, or his family right away, if not just leave the surname out and try again.

One of the benefits of a Google search and Google book search for town and county histories is that they often have genealogies which tell where people lived, what they did, and even where their descendants migrated to. As these are old histories, they are often based on recollections so they may be flawed and they are not primary sources, but they can give you great clues. To show you the power of a good Google search, much to my surprise I found my Czech ggg-grandfather in what is now the Czech Republic from a Google book search. It was written in German, but I found an on line dictionary so I could do a translation

While researching Chandlers in early frontier New York, I had no idea where they came from. By Google searching the history of the towns and counties, I found out that most of the early Chandlers who settled there had received land bounties for their service in the Revolutionary War. It turned out that their regiments came from Connecticut and had served in the then frontier of New York. From there I began matching up the New Yorkers to their birth records in Connecticut and found most were descendants of William and Annis Chandler.

As I studied New York further, I found a cluster of Roger Chandler of Concord, Mass descendants and a cluster of William of Newbury, Mass descendants, but no Edmund cluster. The few Edmund families that I found who tried New York left and went back to their home states, with the exception of a few women who married New Yorkers and stayed. It is still possible that I may come across an Edmund family in the future in early New York, but the odds are low.

As you do your county or town history searches , remember that boundaries change! So check U.S. State and County Boundary Maps and Old American Atlas Maps and to find names of obscure places where you know the name, but don’t know where it is try, Place Names – Gazetteer of Countries, Regions and Cities Worldwide These are both free sites.

OF INTEREST ON TV

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE
Good news for you who are fans of “Who Do You Think You Are”, the NBC genealogy show. It has been renewed for the third season and will be back in 2012. I am guessing most likely in January. Reruns are playing now in my area on Saturday nights on NBC. Lisa Kudrow, of “Friends” fame is the producer of this program. Past episodes included researching the family histories of actresses, actors, football players and singers and visiting their ancestral homelands. Sarah Jessica Parker’s family tree included a New England “witch”, but so far no Chandlers have turned up. Ancestry.com is their main sponsor and they provide the legions of researchers. We all know it is not as easy as they make it look!

THE HISTORY CHANNEL
Our treasurer and co-chairperson, Bob, told me about a program called “How the States Got Their Shapes.” If you learn about history and part of that history comes from geography, you will be able to make much greater progress with your genealogy. Land that could be reached by ships was settled first, hence the coastline, then areas where there were navigable rivers.

RFD TV
Most of you probably know about this station, but I just got cable so it was new to me. I found lots and lots of programs about tractors, new tractors, old tractors and ancient restored tractors along with farm implements. Besides shows on tractors there are also episodes on how farming was done in the olden and not so olden days
Just about all of our early ancestors were farmers. There were farmer/sea captains, farmer/blacksmiths, farmer/coopers and so forth. On an episode of Rural Heritage on RFD TV they were pounding out square nails in the blacksmith shop, which brought to mind all of those early Chandler blacksmiths. Making nails was a tedious job assigned to apprentices in the old days. As genealogy is so much more than just collecting names, seeing how people lived way back when is fun as well as informative.

HISTORY DETECTIVES

The series, which airs on PBS, features a group of researchers helping people seek answers to questions they have, usually centering around a family heirloom, an old house or other historic object or structure. It devotes itself “to exploring the complexities of historical mysteries, searching out the facts, myths and conundrums that connect local folklore, family legends and interesting objects. To find the schedule for the show go to; http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/

THE CHANDLER FAMILY GATHERING
Our sister group, The Chandler Family, is having a reunion in Texas this August. They represent all Chandlers who are not Edmund descendants. The CFA was founded on the premise that they were all descendants of John Chandler of 1610 Jamestown, Virginia; however, with DNA testing and modern research tools and techniques, they found out that there were many different Chandler families other than just descendants of John Chandler. Most of their members hail from the South
Our member, Cynthia plans to attend and represent both us as she is an Edmund descendant and her other Chandler line which is southern.

The Fall issue which should be out sometime in October, will feature a new Chandler discovery in Maine, more news from the Jamboree including what is new at Familysearch, finding your ancestor’s land on line and free and more. If you have news, a Chandler photo, or would like to write about one of your Chandler ancestors, let us know so we can post it.
Until next time, happy hunting!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler News

April 24, 2011

SPRING 2011 CHANDLER NEWS by Carol May

News from the Edmund Chandler Family Association www.edmundchandler.com

'Twas Easter-Sunday. The full-blossomed trees. Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Folk customs attached to the festival date from pre-Christian times. Eggs, traditionally forbidden during Lent, symbolize new life. The Easter Bunny recalls the hare, the Egyptian symbol of fertility. Easter may have derived its name from the Saxon goddess Eostre, whose feast was celebrated each spring at about this time. Or it may have derived from the word oster, meaning “rising.” – Excerpted from The Old Farmers Almanac

Usually we have stories about Chandler surnamed folks featured in the Courier, but that leaves out the descendants of female Chandlers as they usually do not carry the Chandler surname. This time we are featuring one such descendant, Elisha Graves Otis, grandson of Lucy Chandler. Without Elisha’s invention, buildings would still be only four stories high and there would be no Manhattan skyline. He did not invent the skyscraper, but he did invent the device that made them worth building. He invented the elevator braking system, which made elevators safe and useable.

This time, I tried something different putting the Chandler lineage at the top of the story, in this case the sidebar. It starts with Elisha and follows the Chandler line back to Edmund. Also, when you see an asterisk, please remember that means the evidence is circumstantial regarding that person although it can be very strong circumstantial evidence.

Are you like so many of us who love to hunt down those elusive ancestors but then get a little sketchy when it comes to citing your sources? This issue we have a fine guide, written by Jennifer Shaw, a member of the Southern California Genealogical Society. Now you can learn how to leave a proper trail of crumbs so that you, or anyone else, can find your source if need be.
In addition to our featured Chandler descendant, Otis, and the story on citing sources, we have member news, DNA news, tech news (going to the cloud), Duxbury news, and upcoming events.
Last reminder for those of you who have not sent in your dues yet!

ELISHA OTIS

Who would have thought that the son of a Vermont farmer would literally turn the real estate market upside down in major cities around the world? That is what Elisha Graves Otis, the son of Stephen Otis and grandson of Lucy Chandler, did with his invention. Did you ever notice the name on an elevator? Usually that name is Otis, after Elisha Otis, as the Otis Elevator Company the biggest in the world. Elevators and hoists have been used throughout history, but they were unreliable, dangerous devices where if the cable or rope broke the goods were ruined and the occupants fell to often-serious injury or even death. You know the movie scenario, the cables break and the elevator plunges down the shaft accompanied by screams. Finis. Well, that was true before Otis’ invention, but not one elevator has plunged killing anyone since, although they have been stuck in them. (If you can, see the great PBS Nova special, “Trapped in an Elevator” made last year. Its all about the history of elevators including Otis’ contribution.)

Otis did not invent the elevator, but he did develop a braking system that was purely mechanical so it could not fail, as it was not dependent on power. If the cables gave way, the brakes sprang open mechanically and wedged themselves in the notches on the guides on the sides of the shaft so it was only a drop of inches. He was inspired by the leaves of a spring on a wagon, only instead of being on the bottom his springing device was mounted on the top of the elevator.

At one time the highest building in a city was the church with its steeple. Since only the bell ringer went up into the steeple it could be high. The most prestigious locations for businesses and offices of commerce and law were on the ground floor so people would not have to trudge up flights of stairs. Buildings seldom exceeded four stores for that same reason. Even with a great view, the upper stories of a building were where the cheap rents were. Along came the development of stronger steel and steel frame construction, but now even if buildings could be many, many times taller, the same problem remained. How many would want to climb that many flights of stairs to reach the upper floors of a building?
The invention of the modern elevator braking system is what made building skyscrapers practical. Now the upper floors with their penthouses and grand views commanded the highest rents. The real estate world was literally turned upside down. The Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, the Sears building, the Chrysler building, the statue of Liberty, the space program and now the tallest building in the world, a tower in Dubai, all use Otis elevators.

It all began when Elisha Otis was a child who preferred tinkering in the blacksmith shop than working in the fields. Elisha Graves Otis was born August 3, 1811 in Halifax, Vermont. His father was Stephen Otis, Jr. and his mother was Phoebe Glynn. His grandparents were Stephen Otis, Sr. and Lucy Chandler (see sidebar). He came from a family of strong convictions. His father was a Justice of the Peace for 40 years, a legislator, a member of the Baptist church and a believer in temperance. His uncle, Chandler Otis, was an Abolitionist who both wrote and donated money to the cause of abolishing slavery. Elisha himself was a staunch supporter of Abraham Lincoln. Otis said that “Machines are the tools of liberty.” Perhaps part of his passion for inventing came from that belief. Elisha Otis left home at the age of 20 and moved to Troy, New York where he was a wagon driver for 5 years. In 1834 he married Susan A. Houghton. He suffered bouts of ill health, almost dying of pneumonia once. He moved his family to the Vermont Hills near the Green River where he operated a gristmill. That did not make money so he converted it into a saw mill which also did not make money. Then he started making wagons and carriages. He had two sons, who later joined him in his work, and two daughters. His first wife died and he was left with young children to raise when he married Betsey A. Boyd and moved to Albany, New York to start over. He was always a tinkerer, inventor and was fascinated by tools. He developed a system for hoisting materials two or three stories high for his brother, Chandler, who was a builder. His brother was named after his uncle Chandler, the Abolitionist. In Albany while working for a bedstead manufacturer Elisha was disheartened by only making 12 bed rails a day so he invented and patented a rail turner that could produce four times as many bed rails a day. For that he was awarded a $500 bonus from his boss. Elisha then opened his own business in Albany. He worked on a train safety brake system, an automatic bread-making machine, and on other inventions. He was put out of business when the stream he was using for power was diverted to provide water for the city of Albany. He left Albany and moved to New Jersey to work as a mechanic. Then he moved to Yonkers New York as the manager of a building that he was supposed to convert from an abandoned sawmill into a bedstead factory. By now he was forty, but he was still the inventor. He needed to be able to remove the old debris from the upper levels of the factory. Hoisting platforms were dangerous, so he and his tinkerer sons designed their “safety elevator” which incorporated his braking system, in 1852 while working for the bedstead factory. Their invention worked. At the time, neither he nor his boss thought anything of it, he did not even patent it, nor did he ask for a bonus. The bedstead factory eventually declined and Elisha and his sons decided to form their own company. Now he would sell elevators. He sold three of the “safety elevators” in 1852 but none in 1853 and 1854. His company assets were only $122.71 in December of 1853, a paltry sum for even in those days. Then he decided to promote his invention at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in New York City in May of 1854, his first and only foray into big time publicity. At the Crystal Palace everything changed with the meeting of Elisha Otis, the gifted tinkerer and inventor, and P.T. Barnum, the circus impresario and famous promoter. “A sucker born every minute,” was Barnum’s most famous quote. This time Barnum was promoting the real deal.

Elisha Graves Otis demonstrating his safety elevator, 1853

Interest in Barnum’s exhibit had flagged. His centerpiece statue of George Washington was not attracting the crowds. Barnum saw the attraction of Elisha’s invention. The statue was gone and in its place was Elisha’s “hoisting platform” which towered into the air. After graphically describing tales of the horrors of elevator accidents, Barnum introduced Otis. A top hat wearing Otis went up in his device, and then came the part, where according to Barnum, “smelling salts were needed.” To the crowd’s horror the rope holding up the hoist and Elisha Otis was cut with either a saber or an axe, the reports are conflicting. There were screams and gasps, but the hoist and Elisha only dropped inches. He stood there then bowed and doffed his top hat and proclaimed to the crowd, “All safe, gentlemen, all safe.” The demonstration was a huge success. More importantly, “safety elevators” began selling. At first, they were mainly used as a method to hoist goods, but soon began transporting people.

Elisha was a genius at inventing, but a disaster at business. His son, Charles, kept a journal in which he noted that while they were finally making money, “Father will manage in such a way to lose it all.” That was in 1858 and only three years later Elisha Otis died in debt with debts of $8,200 and an estate worth only $5,000. Elisha Otis died during a diphtheria epidemic on April 8, 1861 at only 49 years of age. His sons, Charles and Norton, in addition to their tinkering skills had the business acumen to make the company a multi-million dollar enterprise. Charles was only 15 when he was hired as a mechanic at the company where his father worked. His brother Norton, in addition being a co-owner of the elevator company, was a two-time congressman from New York.

But what Elisha Otis lacked in business sense, he more than made up for it in vision and skill at inventing devices that were the solution to problems. What Otis saw as a solution for moving goods then people upward safely also made the Manhattan skyline and big city skylines all over the world possible.

Now in the 21^st century, Otis Elevator is working on an entirely new elevator system that works on a magnetic system which will be capable of going far higher than the cable system of today.
Otis Worldwide | A Visual Timeline

This is a great history in pictures from the present day Otis Elevator Company.

Who Made America? | Innovators | Elisha Otis

This is the PBS site. PBS had a terrific documentary on elevators last year. Be sure to catch it if it is repeated in your area.

Elisha Otis – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The people’s encyclopedia dependent on the readers to make corrections
Elisha Graves Otis: Biography from Answers.com

A short biography of Otis as well as a brief summary of Otis elevator to the present day.

Vertically Un-challenged > The History Channel Club

A lively recounting the history of the elevator and Otis’ demonstration at the Crystal Palace.

Otis, Elisha Graves
A nice biography of Otis and story about elevators that came with a fine bibliography (listed below) if you wish to read up on Otis at your local library.
Fucini, Joseph J. and Suzy Fucini. Entrepreneurs: The Men and Women Behind Famous Brand Names and How They Made It. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1985.
Ingham, John N. Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983.
Jackson, Donald Dale. “Elevating Thoughts from Elisha Otis and Fellow Uplifters.” Smithsonian, November 1989.
Malone, Dumas, ed. Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928-1936.
Otis Elevator Co. “The World of Otis.” Farmington, CT: Otis Elevator Company, 1998. Available from http://www.otis.com (May 8, 1998).
Useem, Jerry. “Giving Business a Lift.” Inc., November 1997.
World of Invention. Detroit: Gale Research, 1994.

ELISHA OTIS’ CHANDLER ANCESTRY

From research by Billie Pett

Otis Monument by Billie Pett(Susan was the first wife of Elisha)

Lineage: Elisha Graves Otis>Stephen Otis, Jr.>Lucy Chandler*>Nathaniel Chandler*>Edmund Chandler>Joseph Chandler>Edmund Chandler, the immigrant

Elisha Graves Otis grandmother was Lucy Chandler, who married Stephen Otis. We believe that Lucy was one of the daughters of one of our “mystery” Chandlers, Nathaniel. We dubbed Nathaniel, along with Capt. John, Zebedee and Mercy “mystery” Chandlers because we couldn’t prove their parentage. Since then breakthroughs have been made regarding Capt. John and progress made with the others, by mostly our member, Billie. The research showed they were the children of Edmund Chandler and Elizabeth Alden. Research is ongoing. Edmund was the son of Joseph Chandler and grandson of Edmund, the immigrant.

Nathaniel died in 1741 on an ill-fated military expedition to the Spanish West Indies. Five hundred went and only 50 returned, the majority dying of disease. Nathaniel had seven daughters. Six of them recently have been identified and proven by Billie and Cornelia. The seventh, Lucy, by compelling circumstantial evidence, also is included as one of Nathaniel Chandler’s daughters.
After Nathaniel died, his widow Zerviah, was left to raise the seven girls. Three of the girls, Lucy, Irene, and another sister also named Zerviah, moved from Duxbury to Colchester, Connecticut. Lucy was one of the youngest daughters and may have been the twin sister of Ruby as twins ran in the family. Ruby has been established as a daughter of Nathaniel and Zerviah by information from a deed. Lucy and Ruby Chandler were baptized on the same day “upon their own faith” which means that they were old enough to make that decision. When they were baptized according to Duxbury records (1.). Lucy married Stephen Otis and was dismissed from the Duxbury church and recommended to another church as she was moving to Stephen’s home in Colchester, Connecticut. Not only did three of Nathaniel’s daughters move there, two of the daughters attended the same small church as did Mercy (Chandler) Bartlett. This underscores the belief that Mercy (Chandler) Bartlett was Nathaniel’s sister and aunt to these girls. Lucy and Stephen and Zerviah and her husband, Hubbel Wells did not remain in Colchester, but removed to the then wilderness of Halifax, Vermont most likely after the Revolutionary War. Lucy’s husband served in both the Continental Army and the Militia. Stephen died in his 94^th year and Lucy died at age 98 years and 8 months. (2) They are buried in Halifax, Vermont. When Lucy died she had about 250 descendants! Their son, Stephen Otis, Jr., married Phoebe Glynn, who was born in Ireland. They in turn had six children that we are aware of including Elisha and his brother, Chandler.

Records, First Parish Church of Duxbury (CRI) Baptisms. “Persons baptized upon their own faith after 23 of July” Lucy Chandler and Ruby Chandler, Oct. 23, 1757

Vermont Chronicle, Bellows Fall, VT, May 11, 1837: page 75, Issue 19, Col. F Death Notices. “In Halifax, March 4, Mrs. Lucy Otis, relict of the late Stephen Otis, aged 98 years and 8 months, leaving a posterity of about 250. She became hopefully a Christian in her eleventh year – a few years after unified with the Congregational Church, and from that time, during her long life, adorned the profession she had made”.

MEMBER NEWS
We want to welcome new member, Robert of Connecticut. I don’t know his lineage yet, but will ask. Also, welcome new member Barbara, a descendant of the Yarmouth Maine Chandlers.
I did get a query about Lidia (Polly) Chandler, daughter of Capt. Jonathan Chandler of Piermont, New Hampshire. I think that it was she who married Charles Crook. They moved to New York. If anyone has more information about her, please let me know and I will pass it along. If you have stories or tidbits of information to share, please do. Write to us and we will put it in the newsletter.

PASSINGS

Several in our group lost loved ones this past year. Our condolences to those of you that lost loved ones. Our member Cynthia sent this obituary of her Dad who not only descended from Edmund, but also had a southern Chandler line unrelated to Edmund. If you wish to write, a short obituary for a Chandler loved one that passed away and wish to have it posted in a future newsletter, send it to us.

Here is Cynthia’s obituary for her father:

Orbie Ray Chandler of Denton, Texas passed away at 12:23 a.m. on January 27, 2011. Funeral services were held on February 1, 2011 at Bill De Berry Funeral Directors in Denton, Texas, officiated by Elder Vernon Johnson and Elder Don Watson. Mr. Chandler was laid to rest at the National Cemetery in Dallas, Texas. Orbie R. Chandler was very likely to be, based on documentation and DNA, a direct descendant of Edmund Chandler who was born in England circa 1584 and arrived at the original Plymouth colony of Massachusetts in 1632 where he lived until his death in 1662. Orbie R. Chandler was born in Littlefield, Texas on February 26, 1929. He served his country proudly as a private, first class, in the Marine Corps during World War II, in China and Guam. Afterward, he followed in his father’s footsteps becoming a professional paint contractor, which was his life-long occupation. Orbie Chandler was a Deacon of the Primitive Baptist Church in Denton. He is survived by his loving wife of 60 years Bilie E.Chandler of Denton Texas. He has four living children, seven grandchildren, and seven great grandchildren. His children are BonnieThomas of Germantown, Tennessee; Betty Bush of Commerce City, Colorado;Charlie Chandler of Manassas, Virginia; and Dr. Cynthia Chandler of Denton, Texas. His first-born child, daughter Diana Lynn Chandler, died in infancy. His grandchildren are Rachel (Thomas) Little, Jason Thomas, Lonnie Max Bush, Brandon Bush, Rowdy Bush, Terra Chandler, and Nichole Chandler. He is preceded in death by his parents Lee and Maggie Chandler of Littlefield, Texas and his brother Marvin “Bud” Chandler, and his three sisters Bonnie Newell Niven, Ruby Bell Shuart, and Betty Nixon. In lieu of flowers, send cards and donations to the Primitive Baptist Church of Denton, Texas in care of family friend Robert Whitman at 2801 Crow Valley Trail, Plano, TX 75023.

DNA NEWS

Our member, Dick, has been an intrepid seeker of Chandler descendants to test. We are very pleased to note that he was actually able to find a Chandler relative of the probable future Queen of England, Kate Middleton, to test! Bravo Dick! None of us know what that test will bring. Of course we are hoping for an American connection, especially to Edmund. We will just have to wait and see. Chandler is an occupational name so not all Chandlers are related. Dick says that there are probably 150 distinct Chandler families. There are over 300 participants in the Chandler DNA project. Matches have been made between British subjects and Americans as well as Australians. We just received news that a new group for descendants of Roger Chandler of Concord, Mass, technically the grandson of Roger as he is the common ancestor, has been created within the Chandler DNA Study. Roger’s descendants form Group 61. If you go to www.edmundchandler.com and click on DNA results or the left hand side you will find it.

I wrote previously that they do not match the Edmund Chandler descendants. We were hoping for a match because a match with Roger of Concord descendants would show that Roger of Concord could have been Edmund’s nephew or cousin, but that was not to be.

It has been speculated that Roger of Concord was the son of Roger Chandler of Duxbury. Roger Chandler of Duxbury, from circumstantial evidence, is believed to have been related to Edmund. We will have to hope for a discovery in probably English or Dutch records to answer that question as Roger Chandler of Duxbury had no known male descendants so whether or not they were related cannot be proven through DNA testing.

Thank you Dick Chandler and John Chandler, Chandler DNA project co-administrators, for finding those Roger of Concord descendants to test.

DUXBURY and MAINE NEWS

Our intrepid researcher, Billie Pett, has been actively researching another of our “mystery” Chandlers. Our “mystery” Chandlers are Capt. John, Nathaniel , Mercy and Zebedee. She already proved that Capt. John was Joseph’s grandson. Joseph was the immigrant, Edmund Chandler’s son.

She is now focusing on Nathaniel. Nathaniel , we believe, was Capt. John’s brother. Billie discovered that Nathaniel, who lived in Duxbury in the old Chandler neighborhood, bought land in Maine in 1731 and that Zebedee also bought land in Maine which he sold c. 1741. We knew that Joseph (Joseph>Edmund, the immigrant) and his family were in Maine very early on, but what a surprise that Nathaniel and Zebedee were also. Maine was part of Massachusetts until 1820.

Regarding the plaque and the Capt. John project, Billie wrote that are still on her “To Do” list.

CITING YOUR SOURCES

Many of us, when first starting out, are delighted to fill in that little empty space on our chart with our newly discovered ancestor, but we give short shrift where we got the information. Then it dawns on us that we may have to find that information again to do more research, to share with others, or to join a lineage society like the DAR, Sons of the Revolution, or Mayflower Society. If you want to spare yourself a futile search for a half-forgotten source or to show that your work is accurate, cite (record) your sources and try to cite them correctly.

It is especially important when you found the record for your ancestor in an obscure hard to find place. It took ages to find him and if you don’t do a good job of citing your source, you may not find him again. If your ancestor appeared in the 1870 US census, for example, write that down, but don’t stop there. Did you find him on a census image (the photograph of the handwritten page) or a transcription? Was the census from Ancestry? Heritage Quest or was it from another source?

That may seem unimportant because wouldn’t every census source for example, the 1870 US census, be the same? The answer is no not always. Was your ancestor an orphan or an elderly ancestor living with a different surnamed family? Was his name misspelled? The census image may have the correct information, but the transcriber may not have recorded him or may have recorded him incorrectly. In addition, transcriptions are not all the same because different companies have different transcribers. You may find your elusive ancestor on the image, but not on the transcription or on the Ancestry transcription of the census, but not on the Heritage Quest transcription or vice versa.

Another tripper- upper is the edition of the book. The “Genealogy of Edward Small” by Lora Altine Underhill is the finest work on the early Chandlers. We use that source a lot, but did you know that there are two editions? I went around and around with an inquirer about information in that book. It turned out that he was referring to the first edition and I was looking at the more accurate revised second edition of that book. Even if you don’t use the methods in the books that Jennifer lists, develop a method that works for you, stay consistent and at least provide a good trail of bread crumbs to find your way back to your source so that you won’t have to repeat the search. See genealogist, history teacher and g grad student of archiving, Jennifer Shaw’s excellent short guide and resource list below to learn more about citing your sources.

GENEALOGY CITATIONS

by Jennifer Shaw

Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS)
_ A Reasonably exhaustive search;
_ complete and accurate citation of sources;
_ analysis and correlation of the collected information;
_ resolution of conflicting evidence; and
_ a Soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion.
Citation Methods:
_ MLA—Modern Language Association
o Language and Literature scholarship
_ APA—American Psychological Association
_ Chicago
o History scholarship
o The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 2010.
Genealogy Citation Manuals:
Lacky, Richard S. Cite Your Sources: A Manual for Documenting Family Histories and
Genealogical Records. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1980.
Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Evidence!: Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian. Baltimore, MD:
Genealogical Pub. Co.,1997.
—. Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace. 2nd ed. Baltimore,
MD: Genealogical Pub. Co., 2009.
—. Quick Sheet: Citing Online Historical Sources, Evidence! Style. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical
Pub. Co., 2007.
—. Quick Sheet: Citing Ancestry.com Databases & Images, Evidence! Style. Baltimore, MD:
Genealogical Pub. Co., 2009.
All citations should include as much of the following as possible:
_ Author(s)
_ Title(s)—Title, subtitle, database title, etc.
_ Publication Information—publisher, publication place, publication date
_ Date(s)—copyright, date accessed, etc.
_ Location of the source—repository, website URL, etc.
_ Locator—page number, chapter, call number, microfilm number, etc.
Source citations can be placed in four locations:
_ Footnotes
o A brief note at the bottom of a page indicating the source of a quotation or
information and/or an explanation of something in the text
_ Endnotes
o The same as a footnote, but located at the end of the chapter, section, book, etc.
_ In-text
o Citation is in parenthesis () following text and usually contains the author’s last
name and the page number
o This is always accompanied with a works cited page
_ Works Cited Page (aka Bibliography)
o Alphabetical list of all source citations
o Located at the end of the work

TECH NEWS

Do you want to be able to record your information straight from the library source, Aunt Jane, a cemetery or wherever straight into your family tree without having to transcribe your notes?
That’s what I want to be able to do. I am probably the least able to write about tech news, being on the “See Spot” and “Run, Sally, run” level, but my computer and my printer went out within a week of each other and I had to replace them. I thought that I would share with you what I learned from the members of the Southern California Genealogical Society Rootsmagic user group.

Since I bought another desk top it can’t be dragged to the library, but if the library has computers that patrons can use, a flash drive, which is a little cigarette lighter sized, storage device that plugs into a computer can be used. Plug it in, type away, unplug it and plug it in at home and download your work directly into your big program on your home computer.

Netbooks, which are very small, lightweight mini-computers that can access the internet and run a small genealogy program like Rootsmagic To Go, are another alternative. With a netbook you can directly type in the information into genealogy program on your little bitty, netbook, then go home and download it directly to your big computer with the full-sized program. When using a netbook or any portable computer, they all warned me to make sure that you have long lasting batteries — like 8 hours worth.

Going to the Cloud

Or if you want to send your work directly from the library computer or from your netbook to your home computer you can “go to the cloud” so to speak which totally lost me. Going to the cloud means storing your computer generated work on a site located elsewhere. I was told that there is a service called Dropbox www.dropbox.com which is free if you don’t need a lot of space. You type in your information, or upload your pictures and send it to Dropbox via the Internet. When you get home, you fire up your computer and connect to Dropbox and download the information directly into your program. No retyping! Dropbox serves as a temporary storage far, far away although not actually in a cloud, but somewhere in an earthbound locale.

Please remember that I haven’t actually tried Dropbox or netbooks or even the flash drive. If you are tech savvy or want to be you might want to read Dick Eastman’s articles about Dropbox. He loves it. Eastman is probably the most expert genealogy blogger out there with a tremendous following. You may wish to check him out for all sorts of genealogy topics, not only tech matters. He has a free blog and also a subscription blog.
Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter: Search

UPCOMING EVENTS

Two events that are coming up that may be of interest are:

The Southern California California Genealogical Society annual Jamboree.

Southern California Genealogical Society: 2011 Jamboree:
June 10-12, 2011 at the Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport Hotel, 2500 Hollywood Way, Burbank, CA 91505.
This is a real production as there will be 130 concurrent sessions held over the three day period. In addition to nationally and internationally renowned experts, there are 70 exhibitors including both commercial and non-commercial ones. Look for deals on subscriptions, books, computer programs and more from the commercial vendors. About 2000 people attended last year making it one of the biggest genealogical gatherings in the country.

If you are going to be in the Los Angeles area during the Jamboree, you might want to make plans to attend. There are even free sessions if you just wish to see what it is all about. Here is the excerpt regarding the free sessions. For more details about the Jamboree go to the website above. Check to see if there will be tours of the fairly nearby SCGS library.

JamboFREE sessions will ensure that in these economically challenging times, expense will not be a barrier to learning. Several concurrent sessions, each lasting three hours, include a Genealogy Librarian’s boot camp, a repeat of last year’s highly popular Kids’ Family History Camp, and beginner genealogy sessions. For the first time this year, Jamboree will offer a three-hour session for genealogy society leaders, sponsored by the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) and the California State Genealogical Alliance (CSGA). Please register for your JamboFREE session, including the tours listed below.

The Genealogy World round table discussion has been expanded to three hours and moved to Friday morning as part of the JamboFREE offerings. You’ll find almost 20 different discussions going on during each of two time slots. The session affords an excellent opportunity to network, to explore research tactics for specific geographic regions of the world, and to exchange tips and techniques on an informal basis. A complete list of round table discussion topics will be announced at a later date, and we’ll have some unassigned tables so you can bring up your own topic. There is no charge to attend the Genealogy World session, but we ask that you registration in advance.

The Chandler Family Association Annual meeting

It will be held this year on September 16 and 17^th2011 at the Holiday Inn Express 6055 LBJ Freeway Dallas, Texas 75240. Last year it was held in Virginia celebrating the 1610 arrival of John Chandler to Jamestown.

The Chandler Family Association is our sister group representing all Chandlers except those who descend from Edmund Chandler of Duxbury. The CFA started out being an association for southern Chandlers, in particular, descendants of John Chandler who arrived in Jamestown, Virginia in 1610. However, over the years, further research and DNA testing revealed that there were many other unrelated southern Chandler families. While they are still mostly southern oriented, they welcome all Chandlers now, but the Edmund descendants go to us. Our member Cynthia plans to represent us at their Dallas meeting. For more information go to:
Chandler Family Association – Annual Meetings

NEXT ISSUE

In the next newsletter, I hope to have a story on Benjamin line descendant, Howard Chandler Christie, who was a famous artist and illustrator, news from the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree, and maybe we will find out if Kate Middleton has American Chandler relatives, plus more.

In a future issue, I would like to feature Hewett Chandler, the Shaker inventor and leader and his family. Many folks brought key pieces of information to that story. I think that Hewett was from the Yarmouth, Maine branch of the Chandler family. We can prove his siblings, but so far his ancestry is based on circumstantial evidence. The Shakers also wonder about the origins of their Shaker brother.

As always, if you find mistakes or wish to add more information, or have a question, or want to contribute a story, news tidbit or a picture, let us know. We should see you in July!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler News

January 27, 2011

WINTER 2011 CHANDLER NEWS by Carol May

News from the Edmund Chandler Family Association www.edmundchandler.com

A new year means an opportunity to make new discoveries. In the past, our member, Billie, made a major breakthrough with the early Duxbury Chandlers – Joseph and Capt. John! Last year, we found a family of Chandler orphans, found out more about who we now know was an ordained minister, Rev. Abel Chandler and his family and much more.

In the year ahead I hope to do more research into two Maine Chandler families and solve a couple of mysteries. I recently found another sibling of Hewett Chandler, the Shaker leader and inventor. He was Luther P. Chandler who ended up in Wisconsin. The Shakers of New Gloucester, Maine have long wondered who their brother, Hewett Chandler descended from. Hewett was a Shaker leader and prominent inventor. Several of us worked on that project a while back, but came to an impasse, although this new clue may help. My hunch is that he descended from the Joseph line through Judah Chandler.

A few years back, our member, Elsie, and I researched the three Rebecca Chandlers of Minot, Maine. She found her Rebecca and I thought mine was the daughter of the other Abel Chandler of Duxbury, then Minot, Maine, but now I am not so sure as there is a possibility that my Rebecca was of the same family as the mysterious Hewett Chandler. I hope to find out as there may have been four Rebecca Chandlers of Minot, Maine all born within a few years of each other.

Our member, Dick, is working on finding English Chandlers for DNA studies. Hopefully, as more English Chandlers are tested, one will match our Edmund descendants. If that happens we may have a major breakthrough on Edmund’s English origins.

There are ongoing changes over there at www.familysearch.org. We hope to have more information about what is going on in the Spring issue. Just when you get your research techniques adapted to their new system, its changed again

Coming, probably in the Spring issue, will be an article about another Chandler inventor (is there a common family thread here?) Elisha Otis, Lucy Chandler’s grandson. He invented the modern elevator.

Of course, one starts researching one Chandler and lo and behold a discovery is made about another. So who knows which direction our research will take us or what discovery will be made about which Chandler.

This issue we have Tips and Resources, updates to past genealogy stories including a Civil War update, the return of the TV genealogy show, “Who Do You Think You Are?”, news about the probable future Queen of England who is also a Chandler descendant (we don’t know which Chandler family yet) plus more.

TIPS AND RESOURCES

One resource, and a great resource that is usually overlooked, is the Bureau of Land Management patent office. This government website shows land awarded to soldiers, their widows or their heirs. Often the soldiers never lived on or even saw the land, but sold or traded it for something that they could use. Check to see if you can find your ancestor. If the record has been indexed and microfilmed, you can see the actual land patent (award) and what regiment he served and who he served under. The order was signed by the president at the time, or more likely the president’s representative. Many clues can be found by searching these records.

http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/PatentSearch/

For those of you with Dover-Foxcroft, Maine ancestors, you may wish to see this site:

http://www.mainegenealogy.net/individual_place_record.asp?place=dover-foxcroft

The Probable Future Queen

Kate Middleton, the fiancée of Prince William, is a Chandler descendant. The question is from which Chandler family does she descend? Could she be related to Edmund or another American Chandler? Possibly, we just don’t know. Hopefully in the future her family tree will be expanded upon. Perhaps we can get a Chandler from Randwick, England, where her Chandler ancestors were from, to be DNA tested to find out.

******************************************

You may like to know that one of the great grandmothers of Kate Middleton,
hopefully to become the bride of the future King William in 2011 and later
become known as Queen Katherine, was Edith Eliza Chandler born in
Buckinghamshire, England in 1889.

“Gloucestershire and Kent are the two English counties most heavily
populated with Chandlers. Kent also has a lot of Chantlers, but few of
them in Gloucestershire. In the whole of Gloucestershire, the densest
Chandler population was in Randwick, where Kate’s ancestors came from.

Chandler – Labourers from Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, rising to tradesmen

If you would like to see her family tree, go to the site below.

Ancestry of Kate Middleton

I have helped a correspondent with her ancestry, which connects with Kate Middleton’s Chandler ancestor Theophilus Benjamin Chandler. Although Theophilus was born in Worcestershire, his ancestral roots lie in Randwick in the county of Gloucestershire, which has been a Chandler stronghold for centuries. I have been contacted about this by the producer of a British TV documentary about Kate Middleton’s family history, and the screening of that show could also give us some good publicity in the run-up to the Royal Wedding (which will hopefully prove much happier than that of her huband-to-be’s mother, Princess Diana.)” From Dick Chandler

“Who Do You Think You Are?” returns

2011′s “Who Do You Think You Are” Celebrities are announced: Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim McGraw, Rosie O’Donnell, Steve Buscemi, Kim Cattrall, Lionel Richie, Vanessa Williams and Ashley Judd take a look inside their family histories on NBC’s genealogy alternative series produced by Lisa Kudrow. The series begins airing on Friday, February 4, 2011.

“I am quite excited because we hope that the widow and sons of the famous English Napoleonic-era military historian Dr David Chandler will attend, and that one of his sons will give a DNA sample there, which Family Tree DNA will process free of charge – I expect there to be a match with two existing DNA project participants (one in Britain, one in Canada) whose roots lie in the English county of Suffolk. That could give us and our English DNA efforts some good publicity.” From Dick Chandler

UPDATES

The Civil War Fate of Alvin Chandler

Last time we had a story about Rev. Abel Chandler’s family. Alvin, who we believe was Rev. Abel’s son, disappeared from the records and his fate was unknown. Thanks to Ancestry.com’s free access to military records over Veteran’s Day weekend, his fate was revealed. Alvin died while serving in the Union army in the Civil War.

Civil War records indicate that Alvin Chandler enlisted on November 15, 1861 at age 31. He served in Company H, Maine 12^th Infantry Regiment. His residence was listed as Barnard, Piscataquis, Maine. Prior to his enlistment he was enumerated in the 1860 census along with Xoa Chandler, his sister-in-law, in Barnard. Barnard was a very small place noted for its slate quarries.

Interestingly, according to the American Civil War database, he entered as a sergeant, but then was reduced to ranks, but then promoted to full private. He died January 5, 1863. I don’t know why he was reduced to ranks, but then promoted.

He was in a regiment that saw much combat. You can read the regimental history below. He most likely participated in the fighting in New Orleans and also the battle of Ponchatoula, Louisiana (read the account below) as that took place in September of 1862 and he died in January of 1863. The regiment suffered many casualties. Of the enlisted men, 49 were lost in combat, but 237 died from illness or accidents. So the odds are that Alvin died of disease rather than from injuries sustained in combat.

History
MAINE
TWELFTH INFANTRY
(Three Years)

Twelfth Infantry.–Cols., George F. Shepley, William K.
Kimball; Lieut.- Cols., William K. Kimball, Edwin Illsley;
Majs., David R. Hastings, Gideon A. Hastings. This regiment
was organized at Portland, Nov. 16, 1861, to serve for three
years, and was mustered out of service at the same place, Dec.
7, 1864, the recruits and reenlisted men, however, being
organized into a battalion of four companies and remaining in
the field. This battalion was afterwards ordered to Savannah,
Ga., and was raised to a full regiment by the assignment of the
10th, 11th, 15th, 18th, and 16th, companies of unassigned
infantry, organized at Augusta, Me., in the early part of 1865,
to serve, one, two and three years, and which were assigned as
Companies E, F, G, H, I and K, respectively. The regiment was
intended from the outset to form a part of Gen. Butler’s New
England division, designed for the capture of New Orleans. It
left the state for Lowell Mass., on Nov. 24, 1861, and after a
delay of several weeks at Lowell and Fortress Monroe, finally
disembarked at Ship island, Miss. On May 4, 1862, the regiment
went to New Orleans, which city had fallen into Union hands,
and where Col. Shepley, now commanding the 3d brigade of Gen.
Butler’s army was appointed military commandant of the city.
The regiment saw much exciting and arduous service in the South
before it finally returned to the battlefields of Virginia, on
July 20, 1864. Col. Kimball, who succeeded Col. Shepley in
command of the regiment, aided by a gunboat, performed
brilliant service at Manchac pass, where he captured two
Confederate batteries of six 32-pounders, with a stand of
colors, a large amount of stores, and $8,000 of Confederate
currency. The achievement was eulogized by the war department,
which ordered the captured colors to be kept in the possession
of the 12th and they were subsequently added to the trophies of
the state. The 12th, during this period, also took an
important part in the reduction of Port Hudson, accompanied the
expedition of Gen. Grover up Grand lake, and engaged the enemy
at Donaldsonville, La. On March 12, 1864, two-thirds of the
regiment reenlisted as veterans, and went back to Maine on a
short furlough. They rejoined the regiment at New Orleans on
June 16. On the arrival of the regiment at Fortress Monroe on
July 20, 1864, it reported to Gen. Butler at Bermuda Hundred.
From this time until the muster out it was engaged in an almost
incessant conflict. It participated in the battle of
Winchester, where it lost 113 officers and men; at Cedar creek
it lost 82 officers and men, and was in many smaller
engagements. On Nov. 19, 1864, the term of service of about 80
of the officers and men having expired, they returned to Maine
and were mustered out. The recruits and reenlisted men,
augmented by unassigned infantry, as above detailed, remained
in the field to form a new regiment. The two and three years’
men remained on duty, together with the battalion of veterans,
at Savannah, Ga., until April 18, 1866, when the whole
battalion was mustered out of service at that place.

Source: The Union Army, vol. 1

Battles Fought
Fought on 13 Sep 1862 at New Orleans, LA.
Fought on 15 Sep 1862 at Ponchatoula, LA.
Fought on 25 Mar 1863.
Fought on 25 May 1863 at Port Hudson, LA.
Fought on 27 May 1863 at Port Hudson, LA.
Fought on 28 May 1863 at Port Hudson, LA.
Fought on 31 May 1863 at Port Hudson, LA.
Fought on 14 Jun 1863 at Port Hudson, LA.
Fought on 15 Jun 1863 at Port Hudson, LA.
Fought on 19 Jun 1863 at Port Hudson, LA.
Fought on 25 Jun 1863 at Port Hudson, LA.
Fought on 17 Sep 1864.
Fought on 19 Sep 1864 at Winchester, VA.
Fought on 19 Oct 1864 at Cedar Creek, VA.
Fought on 28 Apr 1865.

Ponchatoula, La.,
Sept. 15, 1862.

Detachments of 12th Maine 13th Connecticut and 26th
Massachusetts Infantry.

Owing to the heavy draft of the boats in which the expedition
embarked it was impossible to surprise Ponchatoula as had been
planned, but notwithstanding this the attack was made. Maj.
George C. Strong, at the head of 112 men, made a march of 1O
miles and when within a mile of the village the whistle of a
locomotive gave the enemy notice of his approach.

On entering the place his column was met by a discharge of
canister from a Confederate light battery. Strong deployed his
men and poured in such a destructive fire that the enemy was
obliged to retreat. Strong lost 21 men killed, wounded and
missing while the enemy’s killed alone numbered 20.

Source: The Union Army, Vol.,6 p.,702

**********

I haven’t seen this book, but it may useful for those researching the Civil War era. If any of you have seen it, let us know what you think.

Genealogical Resources of the Civil War Era – Online and Published Military or Civilian Name Lists, 1861-1869 & Post-Civil War Veteran Lists;

Most genealogical records during the decade of the Civil War are related to the soldiers and regiments of the Union and Confederate military. However, there are numerous records relating to the entire population as well.

More on Danvers State Hospital

Last issue we had an article on spooky places in Massachusetts, Danvers being the spookiest looking of all. Here is a little more on its fate. After it was no longer being used as a hospital only the Kirkbride façade was retained and much of it was torn down to make way for an apartment and condo complex with all of the amenities. During construction of the apartments, even adding more to its haunted reputation, there was a huge fire destroying the many of the new apartments. As far as I know the case has not been solved.

The link below is to a video of some pictures of the fire. I am not particularly keen on pictures of fires, as we get a good view of them periodically here in Southern California, but the accompanying music on this video is as pretty and as haunting as it gets. The music is “Anna’s Theme from the movie the, “Red Violin” by John Corigliano, Joshua Bell, violin soloist with Essa-Pekka Solonen conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC42L7cS-iw

As far as I know no Chandlers were sent there when it was a hospital. It does make one pause and think, however, of those poor people who were there.

As always, if you find errors in the research or wish to contribute a news item or a story contact us. The Spring issue should be out sometime in April. Until then, happy hunting!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler News

January 27, 2011

EIGHTH GRADE FINAL EXAM: SALINA, KS – 1895

Could you pass the 8th grade in 1895?

Grammar (Time, one hour)

1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph.
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of ‘lie,”play,’ and ‘run.’
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7 – 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)

1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. For tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000.. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft.. Long at $20 per metre?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)

1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

Orthography (Time, one hour)

1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication.
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following?, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals.
4. Give four substitutes for caret ‘u.’ (HUH?)
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final ‘e.’ Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis-mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)

1 What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each..
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.

*Answers at; http://www.barefootsworld.net/1895examcomp.html

Source: Smokey Valley Genealogical Society

Leave a Comment

Filed under Final Exam 1895

November 1, 2010

FALL 2010 CHANDLER NEWS by Carol May

News from the Edmund Chandler Family Association www.edmundchandler.com

This month we have a story about Rev. Abel Chandler’s children, “haunted” places including Duxbury’s own haunted places, research sources and tips, Vermont pictures, and more.

Usually we focus on Thanksgiving this time of year because in addition to being a national holiday, it is special to us because of our Pilgrim connection. However, fall also has Halloween, so this time for fun you can check out a few “haunted” places instead.

Our member Billie made another trip east, but not to her “adopted hometown, Duxbury” so no Duxbury news, but Billie did write that she is still on the Joseph and Capt. John research project. She wants to rework parts of it and then submit it to the Alden Kindred, which I think includes the Mayflower people, and to the powers that in Duxbury who have the authority to authorize the plaque.

Billie took the pictures these Chandler sites in Vermont. We will feature her Minot, Maine pictures in a future issue. I also want to do a story on Elisha Otis, descendant of Lucy Chandler for the next issue which will be our winter issue which should be out sometime in January.

Happy Thanksgiving and a very early Merry Christmas and we should see you in January!

A GLIMPSE OF VERMONT

Old Wells Farm

View back of the barn, Wells farm, Halifax, VT

Most Vermont Edmund Chandler descendants descend from his son Benjamin. However, we have found Galen who descends from “mystery” Zebedee descendant, and two daughters of Nathaniel Chandler, who we believe descend from Edmund’s son, Joseph, who also lived in Vermont. The two daughters were Zerviah Chandler (proven), who married Hubble Wells and Lucy Chandler, through compelling circumstantial evidence, who married Stephen Otis.

Vermont is a real challenge to navigate. Fortunately, Billie and husband had directions and the newly bought Garmin GPS or her vacation may have been greatly extended by getting lost in the maze of back country roads. When we think of towns, we think of stores, restaurants, etc., but in Vermont some of those old “towns” are just very old farm houses scattered amongst the big trees with maybe one or two old buildings marking the “center” of town. So with a warning to look out for bears, Billie and husband set out and took these pictures and wrote:

Gravestones for Deacon Jonathan Wells (son of Hubbel Wells and Zerviah Chandler) and wife, Catherine. If you look between these two gravestones, the Elisha Otis marker is visible in the background

“Next we visited the Whitneyville Cemetery, north of Halifax Center, searching for the grave of Lucy (Chandler) Otis and her husband, Stephen. Constance told me that they were buried here, not in the Center Cemetery as town records indicate. She recalled that all that was left was a small footstone marked “L.O.,” and another marked “S.O.,” but we couldn’t find them. She assured me that they were by the Waters family gravestones…and we located all of those…so maybe we were at her gravesite after all (albeit with no visible stone).

“In the Halifax Center Cemetery we found the grave of Jonathan Wells (son of Hubbel Wells and Zerviah Chandler), and the large marker commemorating Elisha Otis (inventor of the elevator), the grandson of Lucy Chandler Otis. We drove up Collins Road in Halifax and I photographed the original Wells farm. It was another beautiful Vermont farm, just north of what would have been the village center in the old days. It is labeled Halifax West on a map, but today there is not much here. The old meeting house where Hubbel Wells held forth as Town clerk and moderator is currently the elementary school and historical society”

RESEARCH SOURCES AND TIPS

This source was passed onto James then to me by someone who enjoyed our website and used as it as a teaching aid in the classroom: http://www.usa-people-search.com/content-big-list-of-genealogy-links.aspx

Another great source that I came upon while researching is a free Massachusetts vital records link from 1600 to1850.

http://ma-vitalrecords.org/

For those of you searching Illinois records, many free vital records can be found at this site, contributed by Barb:

http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/databases.html

Do you think that you may have a Loyalist in your family tree? As far as I know there were no Edmund descendants that were Loyalists; however, there were several William and Annis Chandler descendants who were Loyalists. Contributed by Barb.

http://www.uelac.org/Loyalist-Info/loyalist_list.php?letter=c

Avoiding a Research Pitfall

Not all ancestors were named after a family member or a friend, some were named after then famous people, whose names we wouldn’t recognize now. A simple Google search will help you determine if your ancestor was named after a famous person.

It became popular during the 19^th century to name children after famous people. Several of us got tripped up by Elbridge Gerry Chandler. No, he wasn’t related to the Elbridge Gerry who was the governor of Massachusetts and who inspired the term gerrymandering, but he was named after him. Many parents named their children after Elbridge Gerry during that era and then their children were often named after the parent who was named after Elbridge Gerry so it can get complicated.

I recently came across the name Adoniram Judson (also spelled Judgson) Chandler and then I came across Adoniram Judson Merrill. Related! A Eureka moment! No, they were both named after the first American foreign missionary, Adoniram Judson. After more research it turned out that Adoniram Judson (or Judgson) Chandler wasn’t an Edmund descendant, but I did learn to do a Google search on names from the experience. The tip off should have been that the whole name was used.

More Census Search Tips

Are you checking more than one census source when you hit a brick wall? You should. Because not all censuses contain the same information as they were transcribed by different people and also the different census sources allow different ways of searching – first name, last name, age, birthplace, county, location and more.

Due to modern technology, previously unreadable censuses have been cleaned up so now you can read them. Ancestry has cleaned censuses. If you couldn’t find your guy in the census, go back again and check all of the census sources that you can. Go to the census images and don’t just rely on the transcriptions!

I use Heritage Quest, which I get free at home on line from my local library, Familysearch, Familysearch pilot, and Familysearch beta which are also free and online for everyone to use. Don’t forget that many states also have censuses and many of those are now available. You can also get a little free info from the paid site, Ancestry.com. Utilize each census site’s different research capabilities. The Familysearch sites and Ancestry use Soundex, but Heritage Quest does not. Due to transcriber errors, your ancestor may show up on one of these sites, but not another.

The three main ways that people are “lost” in the censuses that I have found are:

1. Part of the family is listed on one page of the census image and your guy is on the next page and he just got left off the transcription. So go to the next image page and find out if he is there.

2. Transcribers occasionally are unable to decipher a first name or last name correctly or a name may have been misspelled, or just initial were used, or nicknames, or first and middle names were transposed. For first names, search by last name, age and place and then start scanning the names. Misspelled last names are trickier. On Heritage Quest you can narrow your search to a small area and one census year and just scan everyone listed, or narrow your search further by scanning for first names in that small area, hoping to come across your ancestor’s misspelled or incorrectly transcribed last name. Heritage Quest is literal and does not use Soundex, so using a broad search method works well there.

3. If you found your ancestor in an earlier census, but he or she seems to disappear, check the census records for the children as an older person may have gone to live with one of his or her children. Transcribers often will record the family of say, Smith, but will leave Grandma or Grandpa Chandler out as the surname is different. Go to the census image.

THE DATABASES

I am hoping to work on the databases with the guru that I have lined up in November. That’s the plan. We were recently contacted by our sister group, The Chandler Family Association www.thecfa.org about the databases. The CFA started out with just the descendants of John Chandler of 1610 Jamestown, Virginia, but have since expanded to include all Chandlers (we take care of the Edmund descendants) because many southern Chandlers turned out not to have been descended from John Chandler of Jamestown.

They have access to our databases that are online now, but in the future after our databases are updated we are talking about sharing access of our updated databases with their lead genealogists. It would not be accessible by more than 2 or 3 people in their group. We, and they, are sensitive about our respective databases as we don’t want them misused or taken over by some company for their use. In return, I would like to have access to their New England section as they plan to enlarge their area of Chandler research worldwide! It should make Chandler research easier in the future as time won’t be lost researching a person who turns out not to descend from our Duxbury Chandlers. I have researched a lot of those! I will keep you posted. If you have comments or suggestions about this, send them to us.

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?” TV SHOW

If you missed episodes of the genealogy TV show “Who Do You Think You Are?” hosted by “Friends” star, Lisa Kudrow, you can now catch them on line until January 10, 2011 at: http://www.nbc.com/who-do-you-think-you-are/video/categories/season-1/1197290/

This is NBC’s site. As the show has been renewed, new episodes should most likely appear on NBC early next year.

“HAUNTED” PLACES

As this is the time of year for haunted, spooky places, you might want to check this website out to see if your town has a haunted place. Our founder, James, found this site.

http://www.theshadowlands.net/places/

Duxbury’s Haunted Places

Duxbury has its share of stories about “haunted” houses and “haunted” places. You can read about a couple of them below. The then new occupants of the Isaac Chandler house on Powder Point Rd. spent the first few days worried if their house was haunted, Isaac maybe? (You can read about that house in a past issue of the Courier.)

The Sun Tavern

One place in Duxbury revels in its “ghost” year round. That is the Sun Tavern (found on the Shadowlands site) on 500 Congress Street. Its full service bar may contribute to keeping the story going. It was built as a residence in 1741. The last full time resident was a hermit named Lysander Walker who unfortunately killed himself in the house in 1928. It became a summer home of the Rev. Francis Keegan and then in the early 1930s Mary Hackett turned the home into a restaurant. Over the years several subsequent owners of the restaurant noted disturbances and strange occurrences supposedly caused by the spirit of Lysander Walker.

If you go to the restaurant, you will get the whole ghost story on your place mat. Some of the ghostly disturbances that have been reported are cold spots and tables turned over. Wonder if that happens more on the full bar side than on the restaurant side?

The Alden House

Every October the Alden house presents its annual haunted house and haunted trail at the historic Alden house. The Alden house is just north of the old Chandler neighborhood at 105 Alden St. in Duxbury. It is family friendly event , so if you plan a trip to Duxbury, the kids can visit the haunted house without being overly scared. Check the Alden site for the date. During the warm months, the house is open to the public for tours and you can visit Aunt Polly’s gift shop.

As the Alden house’s origins date back to the 17^th century, it has had ample opportunity to generate ghost stories. John and Priscilla Alden (of the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, The Courtship of Myles Standish) settled on the property in 1632. It was home to generations of Aldens. Apparently, the head ghost is Aunt Polly, who died at age 93 in 1882. However, for the purpose of the haunted house, they have several ghosts to choose from.

http://www.alden.org/our_house/househistory.htm

The Weston House

“King Caesar” Weston’s house, 120 King Caesar Rd. Duxbury, has had its share of tragic deaths which gave rise to stories that the place was haunted. Eerie noises and shrieks were reported, so apparently not like the more family friendly ghosts of the Alden house. King Caesar was actually Ezra Weston and was a Duxbury ship builder during its ship building heyday. At one time he was the largest shipowner in America. The house is now a museum dedicated to early shipbuilding and is owned by the Duxbury Rural Historical Society.

http://www.duxburyhistory.org/king_caesar_house_history.htm

The Spookiest of the Spooky Massachusetts Places

Two really scary looking places, haunted or not, are the old Monson State Hospital in Palmer, Massachusetts and especially the Danvers State Hospital in Danvers, Massachusetts. I came across Monson and then Danvers while doing some research a while back. If there is an architectural style called “haunted aslyum” Danvers is it with Monson second. Danvers with its elaborate Victorian Gothic style, and Monson with its abandoned buildings and houses surrounded by trees give one the creeps especially if you imagine what they must look like during a storm at night. Danvers was built on the Kirkbride plan, which was once described as laid out like a flying bat, with the main section its body and head. Leaving the scary architecture aside, thousands of people went through the doors of those old hospitals, some were cured and some poor unfortunates spent their lives there and were buried in the back with only a number on their grave.

There were so many wild stories about Monson that I set about trying to find the real story and got an unexpected short history of Massachusetts health care as well.

Only one part of Monson is still being used and that is for mentally disabled children. It is, from all reports, a fine institution located across the road from the abandoned section. The entire site contains 46 buildings and 7 major structures all scattered amongst the trees on 6,710 acres of land. That is not a typo.

Monson started out in the 19^th century as an almshouse (poorhouse) then became a hospital. Part became a general hospital, part a TB ward, part an epileptic ward, part was a home for the severely disabled, and part was an insane asylum. There are remnants from its days as an insane asylum — straight jackets, tubs for water treatments, iron rings for restraints which have all fallen into creepy, abandoned disrepair scattered about. The state of Massachusetts owns it and dilengently patrols it keep people from venturing into the abandoned grounds.

Danvers served as a psychiatric hospital, or lunatic asylum to use the words of the time, until 1992. The original and noble intent was for the mentally ill to live in the country and work in the fields in order to recover. There was some resentment by the locals at the time of the hospital’s elaborate buildings. For some reason, the 19^th century became the great age of the asylum.

Unfortunately, in the early 20^th century Danvers became very overcrowded, understaffed with all of the attendant ills that those conditions cause and was the site of now abandoned medical procedures. However, in modern times according to a someone who worked there for many years until it closed, it had entertainment, a movie theatre, dancing, and arts and crafts, a farm, the place was a self-contained city. It was not perfect, but not the place of some of the wild stories told about it Sadly when it closed some of the patients ended up on the street. He said it was the mystique and architecture that fostered many of the stories.

Afterclosing it was used as a movie site, it figures, and then part of it was torn down and the rest has been turned into cheery apartments and condos, complete with recreational facilities. A little too creepily cheery for me. Living there now would certainly be a conversation starter, or stopper.

Danvers:

Abandoned.

http://www.opacity.us/site22_danvers_state_hospital.htm

History of Danvers including an interview of a former employee

http://www.danversstateinsaneasylum.com/home.html

Danvers now restored as the spiffy Avalon apartments

http://www.avaloncommunities.com/avaloncore/nfloor.asp?comm=306

Monson:

A glimpse of Monson’s early days:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~asylums/monson/index.html

Monson now abandoned:

http://westfordcomp.com/classics/monsonstatehospital/index.htm

As I added the last word to the article, the word being “Danvers” I was notified of a computer malfunction, but the work was saved. True and a little spooky. Happy belated Halloween!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler Ancestors, Chandler News, General Geneology

November 1, 2010

PILGRIM PETER BROWN(E) by Barb Chandler

With Thanksgiving around the corner, our minds turn to the pilgrims. I found a rather drawn-out Chandler connection to a pilgrim ancestor when researching another branch of our tree. Capt. John’s wife Bethiah Rickard’s father Samuel was married to Rebekah Snow. Her father William was married to Rebecca Brown whose father Peter Brown(e) came over on the Mayflower, and signed the Mayflower Compact.

Peter was born about 1594 in Dorking, Surrey, England. He arrived on our shores in 1620 when he was 20 years old. He married in 1626 the widow Martha Ford who had two small children. Historians believed she must have died since Peter married a woman by the name of Mary in 1630, and had three surviving children by both wives; Mary, Priscilla, and Rebecca. He died in 1633 as his estate was administered November 11, 1633 by Widow Mary Brown.

I’ve heard it said if you really want a clear and concise understanding of something get a children’s book. Hence the video, ‘This is America Charlie Brown’ The Mayflower Voyagers Part’s 1&2.’ It is entertaining and gives a detailed explanation of the hardships the Pilgrims experienced coming to America and what it was like in Plymouth Colony when the Mayflower landed.

‘This is America Charlie Brown’ The Mayflower Voyagers Part 1.’

‘This is America Charlie Brown’ The Mayflower Voyagers Part 2.’

Sources

Name: Bethiah Rickard
Birth Date: 15 Oct 1698
Birthplace: PLYMPTON,PLYMOUTH,MASSACHUSETTS
Father’s Name: Samuel Rickard
Mother’s Name: Rebekah
Indexing Project (Batch) Number: C50123-1
System Origin: Massachusetts-ODM
Source Film Number: 874028
Reference Number:
Collection: Massachusetts Births and Christenings, 1639-1915 – Family Search

Margaret Harris Stover from various sources, 2006
Junior Membership Chair, General Society of Mayflower Descendants
Past State Governor, Mayflower Descendants in the State of Florida

Mayflower Passenger List; http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/Passengers/PeterBrowne.php

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler Ancestors

November 1, 2010

REV. ABEL CHANDLER’S FAMILY FROM A TO Z by Carol May

Last time Abel Chandler, the Universalist frontier minister and later Spiritualist minister and lecturer was featured. His lineage was, starting with Abel, was Abel>Ichabod>Jonathan>Capt. John>Edmund>Joseph>Edmund, the immigrant.

This time his children are featured and they literally go from A (Abel, Jr.) to Z (his daughter-in-law Xoa sometimes spelled or misspelled Zoa).

With genealogy, just when you think that you have it all figured out, something new pops up. What popped up was the question whether or not the children listed in the US 1850 census for Jersey, Jersey, Illinois were Rev. Abel’s sons and daughters or whether they were his son, widowed daughter-in-law and grandchildren. At present it seems more likely that they were son, widowed daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Sorting out a jumble of conflicting records can be difficult, so further discoveries and research may change things again. If any of you come across anything new or find that mistakes were made, let us know. Of all of his children, only Abel, Jr. was known to have had children.

Abel Chandler and Abigail (Harlow) Chandler had:

Abel, Jr. born January 13, 1821 Foxcroft, Maine

Abigail W. born February 3, 1822 “ “

Louisa (AKA Lou?) born February 27 1823, Foxcroft, Maine

Harriet born ? Foxcroft, Maine

Whitney born ? Foxcroft, Maine.

Alvin born 1829 according to the 1850 and 1860 censuses. Most likely Rev. Abel’s son

Possibly Charles

We have the birth or baptismal records of children, Abel, Jr., Abigail W., Louisa (Lou?), Harriet and Whitney. Only census records for have been found for Alvin so far. Abigail W., Harriet and Whitney probably died young as no further record has been found for them.

According to Turner vital records, Abigail was the mother of a Charles Chandler. (See explanation below under Charles at the end of the article)

Abel Chandler and his second wife, who is still unknown, had:

Louisa A. born August 29, 1841 and died the same day in Hebron, Oxford County, Maine according to Hebron vital records.

*********

The difficulty with the 1840 censuses is that while everyone was counted by sex and age, only the names of heads of household were listed. The difficulty with the 1850 US census is that while everyone is listed by name, the relationships are not listed.

The 1840 census for Hebron, Oxford, Maine is quite confusing. We have Rev. Abel and:

One female between 30 but under 40 years of age, probably his second wife.

One female 0 to 5, was she a daughter (“Francence”)? A stepdaughter?

One female 15 but under 20. Could she have been the first Louisa as the age matches or a stepdaughter?

There were no other males listed, so there was no Alvin and no Charles.

The 1850 US census for Jersey, Jersey, Illinois is where things get murky once again.

Which is it? Rev. Abel, and children in the 1850 census? Or is it Rev. Abel, son Alvin and daughter-in-law Zoa (Xoa) and grandchildren in the 1850 census? Xoa and family do not show up in anywhere else in the 1850 census. The Ancestry.com census transcription has Zoa (actually Xoa), but the handwriting is not clear on the census image.

At this writing it seems that the second scenario (Rev. Abel and son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren) is more likely to be correct as we can follow the girls in subsequent censuses; however, it still doesn’t explain what happened to the girls in the 1840 census. If you have any additional information, let us know.

1850 US census for Jersey, Jersey County, Maine

Abel, age 50 (actually age 53)

Lou? age 28, Was she daughter Louisa who may have been enumerated in the 1840 census as the age matches? Or did the first Louisa die as Abel had another daughter named Louisa A. who was born and then died the same day in 1841?

Or was she really Zoa (Xoa) Rev. Abel’s daughter-in-law actually age 35?

Charles age 12, Was he Rev. Abel’s son ,born in 1838? Charles was not enumerated in the 1840 census.

Or was he grandson, Charles, actually age 9?

“Francence” age 10, a female of that age also appears in the 1840 census.

Or Lucy Frances age 6

Mary A. age 4 Daughter or granddaughter?

Alvin age 21 was most likely Rev. Abel’s son.

Nancy Methany, age 57 born North Carolina

She may have been the housekeeper.

Rev. Abel wrote to his brother on December 31, 1857 that he “has not been keeping house for over two years.” From that we can gather that most likely, Xoa, Alvin, and the children returned to Maine as that is where we find them, with the exception of Mary A., in later censuses.

ABEL CHANDLER, JR.

The only child of Rev. Abel that we know for sure who had children was Abel, Jr.

Abel, Jr. married Mrs. Xoa Swift in Lowell, Massachusetts on March 31, 1840. Xoa, also misspelled Zoa, was born in Maine. She was listed as “Mrs. Xoa Swift” in the Massachusetts records so it was likely that she was a young widow.

The city of Lowell was where the industrial revolution began in the United States and many young men and women flocked there for jobs. Some remained in Massachusetts, but others returned to their home states as did Abel, Jr. and Xoa sometime before December 12, 1840 as that was when their son Charles Bartlett Chandler was born in Wayne, Kennebec, Maine.

Children:

Charles Bartlett Chandler, born on December 12, 1840 in Wayne, Kennebec, Maine

Lucy Frances Chandler, born on June 3, 1844 in Leeds, Androscoggin County, Maine

Mary A. Chandler? She was born 1846 in Maine according to the 1850 census. She probably died young. Lucy Frances Chandler named her daughter Mary A.

It appears that Abel, Jr. must have died sometime during the 1840s as no more children could be found for this couple and Abel, Jr. did not appear in the censuses or records after this.

Xoa and her probable brother-in-law, Alvin, did appear in the 1860 US census for Barnard, Piscataquis, Maine. However, no children appeared in the census. Son Charles B. Chandler may have been the Charles D. Chandler who was recorded in the 1860 census in Androscoggin County, Maine as Turner, Androscoggin, Maine is where he settled. The “D” could have actually been a “B.” Daughter Lucy Frances Chandler, age 15, was not recorded in this census.

As elusive as both Rev. Abel and Abel, Jr. were, Charles Bartlett Chandler stayed put in Turner, Maine and was recorded in every census from 1860 until his death in the 1920s. His first wife was Mary Sarah Harlow, who he married on May 1, 1860 in Turner, Maine and his second wife was Mary Merrill. He was a farmer.

Children of Charles Bartlett Chandler and Mary Harlow:

Martha E. Chandler

Addie M. Chandler

Gerry A. Chandler

Rodney Chandler

Linley Chandler

Lizzie Chandler

Charles Aubrey Chandler

Nellie M. Chandler

Lucy married John Stillman Pollard on Oct. 24, 1865 in Williamsburg, Piscataquis, Maine. The 1870 US census shows Xoa, age 62, living with her. After John Pollard died, Lucy married Louis Bartlett in Monson, Piscataquis, Maine and died in 1923 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She was buried in Monson. She had several children.

ALVIN

So far, we have not found a birth record for Alvin, although he appears in the 1850 census with Rev. Abel in Illinois. Probably Alvin was his son. Alvin appears again in the 1860 US census In Piscataquis County, Maine with Xoa Chandler, who we assume was his sister-in-law. From the censuses it appears that he was born in 1829 in Maine. Alvin was a shoemaker. So far I have not found any further record of him. This is just speculation, but perhaps he served in the Civil War and was killed.

CHARLES

According to Turner vital records, Abigail Chandler was the mother of a Charles. The question is which Charles? Or were the Turner records in error as many Maine records were done long after the fact? Was there a Charles that we don’t know about who died young, because the Charles in the US 1850 census was listed as 12 years old, which would make his birth year as 1838 and Abigail died on August, 21, 1835! There were no males other than Rev. Abel enumerated in the US 1840 census so it is more plausible that the Charles enumerated on the US 1850 census was Rev. Abel and Abigail’s grandson, Charles, who was actually born in December of 1840.

The only Charles Chandler, who was born in Maine in 1838 and whose parents have not been identified, was enumerated in the US 1880 census for Kaw, Jackson, Missouri. He was married and had children.

SOURCES:

1830 US census for Parkman, Somerset County, Maine

1 Male 30 but under 40 (Abel)

2 Male 5 but under 10 (Abel, Jr., Whitney?

1 Females 30 but under 40 (Abigail)

2 Females 5 but under 10 (Abigail W. and Louisa)

1840 US census for Hebron, Oxford County, Maine

1Males 40 but under 50 (Abel)

1 Females 30 but under 40 (new wife?)

1 Females 0 to under 5 (Francence?)

1 Females 15 but under 20 (Louisa?)

1850 US census for Jersey, Jersey County, Maine

1 Male age 50 Abel, born Maine

1 female age 28, Lou? or Zoa (Xoa)? Born Maine

1 male age 12 Charles, born Maine

1 female age 4, Mary A., born Maine

1 male age 21, Alvin, born Maine

1 female, age 57, Nancy Methany, born North Carolina. Housekeeper?

1860 US census for Barnard (Sebec post office) Piscataquis County, Maine

Alvin Chandler, age 30 shoemaker

Xoa Chandler, age 45

1870 US census for Williamsburg, Piscataquis, Maine (Familysearch beta)

John Pollard, age 30

Lucy F., age 25

Mary A., age 2

Xoa Chandler, age 62

1880 US census for Turner, Androscoggin, Maine (Familysearch beta)

Charles A. Chandler, age 39

Mary S. Chandler, age 38

Gerry A., age 19

Nellie M., age 18

Lizzie M., age 16

Rodney A., age 5

Charles A., age 3

Turner, Maine vital records (Familysearch)

New Hampshire Death Records (Familysearch beta)

Mae A. Stubbs

Born 1868

Spouse: Charles Herbert Stubbs

Mother: Lucy Frances Chandler

Father: John Stillman Pollard

New Hampshire Death Records (Familysearch beta)

Lucy F. Bartlett

Death date: March 12, 1923

Death place: Portsmouth, Rockingham, New Hampshire

Age 78

Estimated birth year 1845

Spouse: Lauren Bartlett

Father: Abel Chandler

Mother: Xoa Swift

Familysearch.org records

Lucy F. Chandler

Birth: June 3, 1844

Death: March 12, 1923

Buried: Monson, Piscataquis, Maine

Spouse: Charles Bartlett Chandler

Born December 12, 1840 Wayne, Kennebec, Maine

Maine Births and Christenings (Familysearch pilot)

Abel Chandler and “Abigah” (Abigail)

Abel, Jr.

Abigail W.

Louisa

Foxcroft Church Records before 1824

Harriet

Whitney

http://ma-vitalrecords.org/MA/Middlesex/Lowell/MarriagesC.shtml#CASWELL

Abel, jr., and [Mrs. dup.] Xoa [Hoa. int.] Swift, Mar. 31, 1840.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler Ancestors

September 5, 2010

SEPTEMBER 2010 CHANDLER NEWS by Carol May

This month we have a story about the mysterious Abel Chandler, the minister. We still don’t have the entire story on him, but have filled in many gaps with new information. If you like puzzles, read this story and try to figure out the rest of the story on him. Another time, we will focus on his son Abel, Jr. and his family.

The next issue of the Courier will probably be out in November not October and then quarterly as those detailed research articles take so much time and I am trying to get some time to work on the databases. It is hard to fit everything in as I have to take care of my Dad. I will see how the work on the databases goes. I have someone lined up to help me, but I have to get the time to make an appointment and go.

If there are news updates, I will post them sooner than quarterly. As always, if you have interesting Chandler stories, photos or mysteries, please share. If you have any corrections or additions to make to this Abel Chandler and family, let us know. His is a complicated story and it is very easy to follow a wrong lead and make mistakes.

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE” IS BACK

If you who missed “Who Do You Think You Are?” the genealogy program on NBC, you can catch the reruns on Friday nights at 8:00 PM in Los Angeles. Check your local listings to see if it is on in your area. As the program has been renewed, we should be seeing new episodes either this fall or mid-season.

ANOTHER CHANDLER FAMILY?

I answer a lot of Chandler posts and queries, although some of them turn out to be far a field from Edmund. Recently, I answered a post about New Hampshire Chandlers, brothers Eliphalet and Samuel, who married Georgia women and migrated to Georgia pre-Civil War.

The trail did not lead back to Edmund, but to possibly to another Chandler family entirely that I had not heard of previously. Eliphalet and Samuel were the sons of Joseph and Polly Chandler of Goshen, Sullivan New Hampshire. Joseph was the son of Joseph and Margaret (Gunnison) Chandler of Newbury, New Hampshire. There the trail appears to dead end.

However, it has been speculated that this Joseph was the son of Capt. William Chandler, a mariner, who married Elizabeth Lucy in 1714 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. What is interesting is that Capt. William is not related to any of the big four early New England Chandler families (William of Roxbury, William of Newbury, Roger of Concord, and Edmund of Duxbury). That means that Capt. William could be the progenitor of an entirely new line of Chandlers. Capt. William was supposed to have come from either London, England, Deptford, England or Ireland depending on the source.

I alerted our member,Dick, and the Chandler Family Association about this ancestor of some of their Georgia Chandlers. More research needs to be done to find out if, indeed, Capt. William did have male descendants. Descendants who are believed to be descended from Capt. William moved to Kittery, Maine. Kittery is a confusing convergence of several Chandler families, including Edmund descendants, so figuring this out would be helpful for all Chandler researchers. The question remains were Eliphalet and Samuel descendants of Capt. William or were they descendants of one of the other Chandler families of the Kittery, Maine area?

Until next time, happy hunting!

2 Comments

Filed under Chandler News

September 5, 2010

REV. ABEL CHANDLER by Barb Chandler

“I’m now, preaching & lecture ing on Spiritualism, & find good success & plenty to hear me – Strainge as you may think, yet the spirit friends can controll me, & impress my mind to speak the glorious things of truth that these things are so – It is in vane for you, or any one else to contradict me in what I know, therefore, time can be saved by learning this New philosiphy your self. I would write you on this matter, & show you the laws of Nature on this momentous subject, but I think it would be time thrown away, unless you have learnt that God is not a God of wrath.” – Portion of letter from Abel Chandler to his brother dated Dec 31st: 1857

When I read the copy of this letter my cousin sent my interest was piqued. I had to find out about Abel. What was his involvement with Spiritualism? Was he a licensed minister? Did he publish any sermons or tracts? These questions filled my head so I went on a quest to find answers.

After years of searching through resources on Spiritualism, I hit a dead end. The resources had nothing about Abel. I gave up and started going through Google Books to see if I might find other Chandlers. I could not believe my eyes when I saw an article about Abel. Abel was licensed but not as a minister of Spiritualism. He was a Universalist and was credited with planting the first seeds of the Universalist faith in New Salem, IL. There was not a date attached to the article, however, I surmised it had to be sometime after 1836 since he was fellowshipped to the ministry in the last half of 1836.[1]

I searched everywhere for more information about Rev. Abel and found nothing. I turned to general articles thinking I might learn more about the religion. and get a idea of what Universalism was like in the years which Abel ministered.

“Universalist theology developed from the dislike to the Calvinist idea of predestination – that some people were born to go to heaven, and some to hell, and nothing you did on earth could change that outcome. Universalist ministers were convinced that God loved his creatures too much to send them to suffer in hell forever.[2]

Early Universalists, both laity and clergy, had a distinctive character that set them off from other liberal religionists. Unlike the typically urban and urbane Unitarian clergy, many of the early Universalist preachers were rough-hewn circuit riders with little formal education who worked the frontiers, where they challenged the theology that Calvinist hellfire-and-brimstone preachers were spreading across the continent at tent meetings and revivals. In fact, the 19th-century Universalists took such pride in their ministers’ humble backgrounds that it was an article of faith among them that the best way to ruin a good minister was to send him or her to theological school. With their quick wits, their talent for improvisation, and their radically democratic bent, the circuit riders and their followers were quintessentially American, and their lives were the stuff of which good stories are made.”[3]

When I put together these general facts about Universalism the letter from Abel to his brother became clear to me. I learned that Universalist ministers helped shape the Spiritualist movement, and were among the public promoters and lecturers.[4] Besides his belief in Spiritualism, I’m guessing that Abel’s used the word ‘strange’ because of the some of the liberal ideas he embraced like; women’s rights, anti-slavery, and temperance.[5]

I can only imagine the history my great great uncle must have seen.

[1] Evangelical Magazine and Gospel Advocate Vol. 8 and

History of Pike County, Illinois page 629

[2] New Garden Community Church Unitarian Universalist Faith Community, Where did Unitarian Universalism come from?, http://www.newgardenuu.org/what_is_unitarian_universalism.htm

[3] Of Sand Bars and Circuit Riders, Reich David, http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/2745.shtml

[4] Spiritualism, http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/spiritualism.html

[5] Universalists on the Praire, http://www.psduua.org/heritage/bring/part1/1a_brigham.html

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler Ancestors

September 5, 2010

ARE YOU ABEL CHANDLER? by Carol May

An update on Abel Chandler, son of Ichabod Chandler.

For those of you that have been with us for a while, you might remember all of the struggles that we had sorting out the Abel Chandlers of the Minot/Poland area of Maine. Here’s a brief recap. Somehow, the information for four Abel Chandlers got merged into two people. Abel is not a very common name and to have had four Abel Chandlers in one locale was remarkable. When we began our research we were not even aware that that there were two Abel Chandlers, both with sons named Abel, Jr. in the Minot, Maine area.

They were Abel Chandler, son of Ichabod and Olive (Fish) Chandler and his son, Abel, Jr. both born in Maine and Abel Chandler, son of John and Sarah (Weston) Chandler and his son, Abel, Jr. both born in Duxbury, Massachusetts, but moved to Maine.

This time we are revisiting Abel Chandler son of Ichabod Chandler and Olive Fish and his family.

Here is his lineage starting with Abel:

Abel> Jonathan Chandler+Rebecca Packard> Capt. John Chandler+Bethiah Rickard>Edmund Chandler+Elizabeth Alden>Joseph Chandler+Mercy>Edmund, the immigrant.

We knew little about him beyond a few bits of information and the letter from Abel to his brother. Abel appears to have started out a Congregationalist, then Baptist, then Universalist and then Spiritualist. His spiritual quest led him through the different religious movements of the times. He and his brother did not see eye to eye on religion. Our editor, Barb, plans to do a story on Abel as a minister in the future.

Sadly, he lost his wives and probably all of his children during his life time, although it appears that he was survived by grandchildren.

He moved frequently and trying to keep track of him was like tracking a jumping flea. He probably held the records for the most moves made by a Chandler – Minot, Foxcroft, Garland, Hebron and East Prospect all in Maine and various places in Illinois and Missouri. Then he was on the road for probably 20 years before finally ending up in Iowa, sadly called insane in the 1880 US census, but was he? Read on and form your own opinion. These are only the places where he lived that we know about. In an attempt to make it easier to follow, events in his life are listed chronologically.

Adding to the difficulty is that Garland vital records prior to 1888 were destroyed as were Minot, Maine records from the mid 1820s for several decades thereafter.

From research, it turns out that Abel may have been married three times, possibly four. With his first wife, Abigail they had Abel, Jr., Louise or Louisa, Abigail W., Harriet, Whitney, Alvin and Charles? With his second wife they had Frances and Mary A. It is unclear about son Charles. Son of first wife or second wife? Or two Charles, one with his first wife and one with his second wife? They did have another Louisa, who lived one day, even though the first Louisa was still living.

1796

Abel was born on November 29, 1796 in Poland, Maine

1818

Abel marries Abigail Harlow in Turner, Maine on April 2, 1818. Contrary to popular belief, Abel did not marry Elizabeth Davis. Abel Chandler, Jr., son of the other Abel married Elizabeth.

1820

Abel and probably wife, Abigail, are recorded in the 1820 US census for Foxcroft, Penobscot County, Maine. Foxcroft later became part of Piscataquis County, Maine. His parents and siblings also resided in Foxcroft.

1821-1824

Children Abel, Jr., Louise (AKA Louisa, Lou), Harriet and Whitney were baptized.

1829-1830

He appeared again, this time with wife and children, in the 1830 US census for Parkman, Somerset County, (now Piscataquis County) Maine. In 1838 Piscataquis County was carved out of Somerset and Penobscot County so he probably lived in what is now the western section of Piscataquis County.

In the 1830 US censuses, only the head of the household’s name was given. There was Abel, presumably wife, Abigail, Abel, Jr., Whitney? Alvin (who from later records was found to have been born in 1829), and an unknown son perhaps named Charles, Louise, and either Abigail W. or Harriet. The other Abel Chandler also had a daughter named Abigail, but she was buried in Androscoggin County.

1835-1836

Abigail, wife of Abel, died August 23, 1835 and is buried in Turner, Androscoggin County, Maine, according to Turner, Maine vital records. Also, about 1835-36, Abel became a licensed minister with the Universalist church. While he may have been a licensed minister, he did probably not earn his living by preaching at that time, although he may have many years later. According to the Evangelical Magazine and Gospel Advocate Vol. 8, Abel was fellowshipped by the Maine Convention of the Universalist Church.

It appears that there was a yet another Abel Chandler, not descended from Edmund Chandler, but William and Annis Chandler, who lived in New York. It appears that he was a deacon in the Universalist church and was involved in church politics. He was born in Connecticut in 1797. Now, while we have the Maine Abels straightened out, this Abel, in addition to being a Universalist, also moved a lot and to the same states as Rev. Abel Chandler. He also had a son named Abel E. Chandler. More confusion!

1837-1840

Abel probably remarried c. 1837, but we don’t who she was as we have not found a record of this marriage, nor of her death presumably before the 1850 US census. There was a son named Charles born in Maine in 1838 according to the 1850 US census. According to Turner vital records, Abigail was the mother of a Charles, but if she died in 1835 she could not have been the mother of this Charles unless her death date or the

census date was in error. It is possible that there was another Charles born in the 1820s who died and this is a second Charles with Abel’s second wife. However, if he was only two years old in the 1840 census why wasn’t he living with his parents? There was also Abel’s grandson, named Charles B. Chandler who was born in December of 1840.

The 1840 US census for Hebron, Oxford County, Maine shows head of household, Abel, presumably his second wife and presumably daughters Louise and Frances (“Francense”). However, there is no Charles and no Alvin, who both later show up in the 1850 US census. Abigail W., Harriet, and Whitney do not appear in this census, nor in any other records that could find. Most likely these three died very young.

1841-1849

Another daughter named Louisa A. was born on August 29, 1841 and died that same day according to Hebron, Oxford County Maine records. It appears that there were two Louisas from two different wives as the first Louise (Louisa) was still living

Abel was out and about traveling on January 6, 1841 in Turner, Maine as he is recorded in Jonathan Phillips’ journal as stopping by.

According to the 1850 US census, there was presumably a daughter, Mary A. born in 1846 in Maine. Names were listed in the 1850 censuses, but relationships were not mentioned until the 1860 census.

Somewhere between 1846, after the birth of his last child and most likely the death of his second wife and 1850, he moved to Jersey, Jersey, Illinois. He was one of the ministers responsible for bringing the Universalist church to Pike County, Illinois, according to the “History of Pike County, Illinois.” He lived in various places in Illinois.

1850-1851

Abel, with family but sans wife, was enumerated in the 1850 US census in Jersey, Jersey County, Illinois. With him are Lou (Louise), Charles, Alvin, Francense and Mary A. Presumably they are all his children. We see probably Alvin again in the 1860 census back in Maine and possibly Charles in Missouri in the 1880 census, but nothing more of the other children after the 1850 census. The Jersey Historical Society has Abel as age 30 and his wife as Zoa, although the census form shows what appears to age 50 for Abel and that it seems that there was Lou not Zoa listed. Lou was much younger than Xoa. Probably whoever saw that got Abel, Jr. and Abel, Jr.’s wife, Xoa, mixed up with his father and sister.

During this same time frame from the late 1840s to the late 1850s, the other Abel Chandler appears as a special land agent for the US government selling land in Illinois. We know that he is the other Abel as his profession was listed as land agent in the 1860 US census for Clinton, Iowa.

In 1851 an Abel Chandler who made the final payment on land purchased land in Franklin County, Illinois, although it is not certain which Abel it was.

1855

Abel and family are enumerated in the 1855 Illinois State Census, Concord Morgan County. Abel is listed along with two boys perhaps Charles and maybe Alvin with the wrong age. There is also a woman listed between ages 40 and 60. Was she a third wife? A housekeeper? Was this the correct Abel?

1857

Now we pick up the trail of Abel again with his letter to his brother, most likely Sylvanus. He and Sylvanus had very different views on religion. On December 31, 1857, Abel wrote that he was well but hadn’t kept house for over two years and that he probably wouldn’t again. He was having success with his sermons on Spiritualism so was probably on the road. The letter was written from Lincoln County, Missouri Abel, and asks him to write to him in Bluff dale, Green County, Illinois.

Of all of these children, we can only find the first Louise (Lou), Abel, Jr., Alvin, and maybe Charles who survived to adulthood. And of these surviving children, we could only find Abel, Jr. and maybe Charles who had children. By the time Abel Chandler died, it appeared that he may have survived all of his children.

1860

It appears that despite not planning on keeping house again, he may have been the Abel Chandler who married Mrs. Phebey Matney. The marriage license was issued November 29, 1860 in Schuyler, Illinois. Barb found the marriage in Illinois Marriage Records, the official online records for Illinois. Matney was probably transcribed incorrectly as “Motney.”

The marriage of “Able” Chandler and Mrs. Phebe Matney on November 29, 1860, was also announced in “The Schuyler Citizen” December 5, 1860. Phebe, Phebey or Phoebe, appeared to have been married previously to Elisha Matney of Kingston, Delaware, Ohio. She was born in Virginia c. 1812 according to the 1850 US census for Kingston, Delaware, Ohio. Her maiden name was Berry. She also appeared in the 1860 census which was taken several months prior to her marriage. She was living with her brother-in-law, Nathan Matney. Her birth year was given as 1808.

The mystery is that Macon County, Missouri also has a transcribed marriage record for Abel Chandler and Pheby Matney February 1, 1846! The marriage was solemnized by John Lamb, Justice of the Peace.

This seems to be a transcription error as it boggles the mind to think that there could be two Abel Chandlers married to two Phoebe Matneys. In 1850 Abel was recorded in the Illinois census with no wife listed so it seems that the 1849 date was a mistake. Further research may unravel this mystery.

Furthering that mystery along was a Phebey Chandler, born in 1812, who was born in Tennessee, who was enumerated in the 1860 US census in Concord, Morgan County, Illinois. A daughter born in Missouri was listed, but there were no others in the household. She couldn’t have been the Phoebe Matney of Delaware, Ohio and if Phoebe did not marry Abel until November of that year, does she fit into this picture or is she just a red herring?

Now hot on the trail of wives, I did find two more marriages one in1865 one in 1867 in Kansas to an Abel Chandler. That’s a lot of wives for one Abel – three in 7 years.

It turns out that at least one and probably both of the Kansas brides, married the other Connecticut born, New York raised, William and Annis descendant, Abel Chandler, who had been enumerated in the 1860 US census in Iowa.

There still needs to be more work on Abel and Phoebe to establish for certain that it was Rev. Abel who married Phoebe and to explain the huge discrepancy in dates. The dates still don’t match up if she married the other Abel.

So we think that the last official sighting of Abel that we found was in December of 1860, when he presumably married, until the 1880 census. As he wrote that he was having success as a Spiritualist minister, most likely he was on the road during this time preaching.

1880

The 1880 US census for Milford, Story County, Iowa shows “Able” Chandler, preacher, living with Jacob Horst and his wife along with several other people of widely diverse ages. This was very likely the Milford County Home where he was listed as living earlier that same year. Sadly, he was listed as insane. He may have suffered from old age dementia, a stroke, or he may have gone off the deep end perhaps from the losses in his life, or his beliefs may have caused his relatives to deem him crazy. They had very traditional beliefs compared to Abel.

Unless we get more facts, you will just have to form your own opinion. In those days insane covered a wide swath of ailments which could include old age dementia. He was not listed on the 1885 Iowa census, so most likely he died sometime between 1880 and 1885. We have not found where he was buried. He may have been buried in Knoll Cemetery in Iowa as that is where paupers and residents of the home were buried or he may have been buried in where his brother, Sylvanus, was buried as there is a Chandler gravestone with an illegible first name.

Whether or not you agree with his religious beliefs, he seemed like a very kind and gentle soul. In those days the Universalist church along with many other churches backed social justice causes such as abolition of slavery and equal rights for women so he probably believed in social justice as well.

While some mysteries have been solved, Abel, Jr. did survive probably until sometime in the 1840s and had children, including the previously mysterious Charles B. Chandler, more have arisen.

What happened to the rest of his children? What is the story on the other Charles or Charleses? Did he really go crazy? What’s the whole story on Phebey Matney? Was he estranged from his brother, Sylvanus and his family? Where was he buried?

If you like solving mysteries, take a crack at Abel’s. As usual, if there are omissions or mistakes, and with him it is very easy to make mistakes, let us know.

SOURCES:

1820 US Maine census Foxcroft, Penobscot County, Maine

One male, Abel Chandler

One female, probably Abigail, his wife

1830 US census for Parkman, Somerset County, Maine

One male 30 but under 40 years of age (Abel)

Two males 5 but under 10 (Abel, Jr.Whitney?)

Two males under 5 years of age: Alvin ?

One female 30 but under 40 years of age: Abigail

Two females under 10 years of age: Louise and either Abigail W. or Harriet

Interestingly, the next name on the census was Seth Chandler , 20 but under 30 years of age, one female 20 but under 30 years of age and one female under 5 years of age. Who was this Seth? Was he Abel’s cousin Seth Chandler, who married Caroline Gurney? This Seth Chandler was the son of Ichabod’s brother, John. However, our records showed that he died in 1825, so was that a mistake or was he another Seth Chandler?

1840 US census in Hebron, Oxford County, Maine

One male under 50 (Abel)

One female under 40. We don’t know who she is because according to Turner, Androscoggin County records Abigail died Aug. 21, 1835. It appears that he remarried, but we don’t know to whom. This is the last record that we have of his second wife. She probably died between 1846 and 1850 when Abel moved to Illinois.

One female under 20 Probably Louise

One female under 5 Probably Frances

We are missing Abel, Jr., Alvin, Abigail W., Whitney, Harriet, Alvin, and an unknown son. Abel, Jr. had married and was living in Lowell in 1840 and Alvin shows up again in the 1850 census with Abel and family in Illinois, but no more is heard of the rest. They could have been living with relatives, but most likely they died. However, we do find Abel, Jr. in Lowell, Massachusetts where he married Xoa Swift.

1850 US census for Jersey, Jersey, Illinois

Abel Chandler born 1800, Maine

Lou Chandler, born 1822, Maine. (Louise)

“Francence” Chandler born 1840, Maine

Charles Chandler, born 1838, Maine

Mary A. Chandler, born 1846, Maine

Alvin, born 1829, Maine

1855 Illinois State Census, Morgan County

2 males 15-20 Charles? Perhaps Alvin recorded with the wrong age or?

1 male 50-60 Abel Chandler

1 female 40-60 A third wife? A housekeeper? Daughter Louise recorded with the wrong age?

Born to Abel and “Aligah” (Abigail) from Maine records were:

Abel Chandler born Jan. 13, 1821 in Dover-Foxcroft, Piscataquis, Maine. Abel, Jr. was a mystery until more records became available. He married Mrs. Xoa (Zoa) Swift in Lowell, Massachusetts in

Abigail W. Chandler born Feb. 3, 1822, in Dover-Foxcroft, Piscataquis, Maine

Nothing further is known about her.

Louisa Chandler born Feb. 27, 1823 in Dover-Foxcroft, Piscataquis, Maine.

She was most likely the female under 20 in the 1840 US census for Hebron, Oxford County Maine and the 1850 US census for Illinois as “Lou.” Nothing further is known about her. She may have been disabled because it appeared that he had a housekeeper in the 1850 census and if she were able-bodied she probably would have gotten that job.

Harriet and Whitney Chandler or perhaps just one person named Harriet Whitney Chandler. Nothing further is known about her and/or them. See notes below:

Alvin born c. 1829 from census records

Note: From Sue Athol

“We’ve had some discussions on this list about Abel Chandler and whether he had children. I corresponded with Pastor Ken Dale of the Congregational Church in Foxcroft, Maine, several years ago. The records from his church showed baptisms in 1824 of children of Abel Chandler:
Abel, Harriott Whitney and Abigail.

Notes from Barb Chandler:

I read over the notes a professional genealogist made about Ichabod’s line. She wrote that from the church in Turner, ME Abel went to the First Baptist. He was ‘embodied,’ perhaps confirmed, at a church in Garland, Me Feb 10, 1823. She lists the children of Abel as; Abel, Harriett, Whitney, and Abigail, and lists their baptismal dates.

Journal of Jonathan Phillips of Turner, Maine (1841)

1841 January 6 Wednesday wind north cloudy carried Bethiah House home paid her 37½ cts for * her work Abel Chandler here Jesse Drew here I exchanged horses with him he o give his note for twenty five Dollars to paid in one year with interest the first time he comes down from Canton it being dark to-night when we traded & he in urry having to go to Canton to-night the horse I have of him is the old Lewis Drew mare

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler Ancestors

August 3, 2010

CHANDLER NEWS FOR AUGUST 2010 by Carol May

News from the Edmund Chandler Family Association www.edmundchandler.com

As promised this month you will get the scoop on the Southern California Genealogical Society’s Jamboree including ways to break down your brick walls. Over 1700 people attended the three day Jamboree to visit the many booths and hear lectures by experts from all over the country.

The Isaac Chandler house of Duxbury is featured this month. Also, Duxbury news including an update on the plaque, DNA news, military research tips, and more!

We welcome a new member, Paul, from Florida. I don’t know his lineage yet, other than being an Edmund descendant, but will ask.

DUXBURY NEWS

Billie is refining and will reprint her document on Joseph Chandler, son of Edmund, the immigrant, and Joseph’s grandson, Capt. John. She has added larger maps and pictures to her report and the final result should go to the Alden Kindred and the Town Historian of Duxbury among others.

She is also working on tracing the land owned by Nathaniel Chandler, her ancestor. Nathaniel Chandler is one of our “mystery” Chandlers. He owned land in the old Chandler neighborhood which was Joseph and Capt. John’s homestead area. We think he was Capt. John’s brother. Nathaniel also owned his homestead farm in the North Hill area of Duxbury. She is tracing that land. Land owned by the Chandlers was sold or traded back and forth over the generations within the family which makes tracing their land difficult because they did usually did not record the transactions until the land left the family. It was the land records which solved the Capt. John Chandler mystery and land records may shed further light on Nathaniel.

THE PLAQUE

Billie is also spearheading the historical plaque project which would honor Joseph Chandler and family and probably also nephew Benjamin’s contribution to the town of Duxbury. Billie says that the proof will be in the document that she is working on. Then it will be submitted for approval. The heart of the town — the town buildings, the cemetery and the meeting house — all sit on what was land once owned by Joseph. The first school was built on land donated by Benjamin Chandler.

COULD EDMUND, THE IMMIGRANT’S, FATHER BEEN NAMED SAMUEL?

This is just speculating, but could Edmund’s father have been named Samuel? It has long been believed that Edmund and Roger were related and both had sons named Samuel. If they were brothers, and we know the way the Chandlers loved to honor their relatives and we know how naming patterns worked, could Samuel have been Edmund’s father’s name? Again, this is just speculation, so please don’t enter this in your databases. It is just something to contemplate and be on the look out for.

Speaking of speculation, newcomers please note that Edmund Chandler was not the son of John Chandler and Jane Gitton. Mary Chandler Lowell thought he probably was in her book, but folks took her speculation as fact and ran with it. We don’t know who his parents were. It is all over the Internet that they were John and Jane, but it is wrong. If you read our member, Dick’s, explanation on the first page of our website www.edmundchandler.com you can find out why. Go to the left hand side and click “Where Did Edmund Chandler Originate From?”

Unfortunately, Edmund was born at a time when birth records were just starting to be kept so his birth may not have been recorded. Also, some records were destroyed over the years and lastly, dissenters may not have wished to have their children’s births recorded in Church of England baptismal books and may have maintained their own books. Those records may have been lost.

However, we are still looking and we are also tackling the issue through DNA testing. If we get a match with an English Chandler or a Chandler with a known pedigree in England we may get our answer that way.

DNA NEWS

We are now trying to broaden our DNA knowledge beyond descendants of Edmund’s sons, Joseph and Benjamin, by testing a Roger Chandler of Concord, Mass descendant. Roger of Concord, has been speculated as the son of Roger Chandler of Duxbury who is believed to have been related to Edmund. A match could between a Roger of Concord testee and the Edmund group would bolster that theory.

We also want to test a descendant of Zebedee Chandler, born c. 1712 and died 1777 in Plympton, Mass to confirm that he was a descendant of Edmund, the immigrant. There is a small possibility that he could have descended from another Chandler family. As Zebedee is one of our “mystery” Chandlers, it would help with that research to be able to confirm that he was or was not a descendant of Edmund. Announcements about our offer went out in July to the boards and various genealogy groups.

I believe that Dick has found a Roger descendant to test, but we are still seeking a Zebedee of Plympton, Mass descendant to test. Roger’s test is being paid for by a generous donation and our group is offering to pay for a descendant of Zebedee’s test.

If you know of a male Chandler with a documented, unbroken male line going back to Zebedee Chandler of Plympton, let us know.

Results of these tests will help us with our research.

News from the Jamboree…A NEW (MOSTLY) FREE SOURCE FOR BREAKING DOWN YOUR BRICK WALL

We all are familiar with www.familysearch.org. That is probably the first place that we looked online when we started tracing our ancestors, but quickly gave up on after encountering so many mistakes in the family trees.

Well folks, they have changed. Previously, I wrote about the Familysearch Pilot which only contains vital records, censuses and the like, but change is upon us again.

The information from Familysearch Pilot and Familysearch is being merged into their Familysearch Beta site. I found this out from the Familysearch booth at the Jamboree. When completed the pilot site will be gone.

Most, but not all, of the records will be free. Why so? Familysearch does not own all of the indexed records on the new site. Regular membership as well as the premium membership are free and allow you to access information that you would not ordinarily be able to do so. However, with the premium membership you are also allowed to access paid sites. To get a premium membership you are required to do indexing or belong to a contributing group. More information is available about this on the beta site.

The beta site is a work in progress so parts may not work at times. It is also interactive. You can actually complain about an omission, error in their records, a glitch in their system, or make a suggestion for improvement and get a reply!

From what I understand, the new site will allow corrections to trees by their creators, something the old site never allowed and which drove us all crazy and ultimately away.

So take advantage of the pilot site while it is up and try the new beta site. The feature that I most like about the pilot site is filtering. You can enter the name Chandler then Ohio for example and then further whittle down your choices by dates, i.e. 1830-1840, gender, names by initial, collection i.e. census records by year, birth records and more.

I have made many discoveries in the short time that I have used it. Ever have an ancestor named James, for example, and been unable to find him? If you use the first letter of the name option, you may find him under “Jas” or “Jim” or J.W or whatever his middle initial was. Or even Warren J. or another first name with “J” being the middle initial.

My favorite feature, so far, about the beta site is “residence.” Before you could only search for birth or death, now you have the residence option, put in the locales and approximate dates where your ancestor lived and get even more information.

They get their information from a variety of sources so when you see Maine easy or Vermont easy for a birth or marriage record they did not access one giant repository. Rather, they created their own giant repository from all sorts of local records. You will probably recognize some of the information even though the source was not named individually. If you get images, great, but if you get transcriptions, there may be errors which may mean an eventual trip to the courthouse basement to see the original record.

So this is a great, great new resource, but it still won’t completely take the place of wading through the weeds at a cemetery to read an inscription or looking at original records.

ANCESTRY.COM

Ancestry.com is a very useful, but expensive subscription resource. Sometimes they are the only place that you can get certain records other than a trip to a courthouse basement, cemetery or the LDS library in Salt Lake.

However, the Ancestry.com library version which is often found free at your local library is not the same as the home version. I had the chance to try both versions out at the Jamboree. I noticed that the home version demo was easier to use and more complete than the library version.

While at a genealogy meeting, I heard that the census indexes on Ancestry are being outsourced to India and China! This may explain some of the errors.

The LDS is relies on volunteers to do its indexing, but no matter who does the indexing there will be errors. If you find them on the LDS sites, report them so that they may be fixed. I have found that Heritage Quest (also free at many libraries), the LDS censuses and the Ancestry.com censuses sometimes differ. If you can’t find your ancestor on one of these sites, try another site.

MAPPING YOUR ANCESTORS HOME OR FARM

For our New England ancestors we rely on town or local historical societies like the Duxbury Rural Historical Society to find the exact house or location where our ancestors lived. Or in our group’s case, we relied on our member, Billie, to plow through hundreds of deeds to finally locate Edmund, the immigrant’s, son Joseph’s house.

However if you are searching for the mid-western farm of your ancestor and wish to see it outlined on a Google satellite map, there is another way. Ancestry is offering a county atlas which can be overlaid on a Google Earth satellite picture and from there you can outline your ancestor’s farm. You look for township boundaries, streams, roads and railroads that have survived to the present day to locate the farm and overlay the map. It does take some doing and knowledge of which features to use on the Google Earth maps, but once those settings are in place, it is not hard lining up the old map with the satellite picture. If you want to know more let me know.

MILITARY RESEARCH

Quick, do you know who the largest publisher in the world is?

Answer: The US government.

I thought that I was doing a pretty good job researching with my sources, but found that I had barely touched the surface of what is available. Not everything is available online, but you may be directed to a library or source which has the material for which you are seeking. The audience was told by Curt Witcher, Manager of the Genealogy Center of the Allen County Public if you ask the librarian of whichever library you wish to seek answers from very nicely, and very specifically he or she may look it up for you. The Allen County Public Library in Indiana is one of the largest genealogical libraries in the country.

Here are some sources, some for military subjects and some for everything that Curt Witcher spoke about:

WorldCat http://www.worldcat.org/

This is the largest free bibliographic database (1.5 billion records) in the world. They access information from 12,000 libraries. You can an even search a specific military unit there.

The Library of Congress Catalog

National Union Catalog of Manscript Collections known as “Nuk Muk” for NUCMC.

Some of their collections are online and some while not online, but often have very detailed descriptions which may answer your question.

http://www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/

American Memory – You can search for specific battalions and more. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html

Chronicling American Historic Newspapers

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

Veteran’s history 20^th century.

http://www.loc.gov/vets/

“A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation.” You can find pensions and relief for pensions here.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/

If my notes are accurate, the Library of Congress has the “Ask a Librarian Service” which will respond in a day or two. Again, you have to have a very specific question.

The National Park Service

http://www.nps.gov/index.htm

http://www.nps.gov/history/linklaws.htm

That may elicit a “What?” but many national parks and monuments consist of former battlefields and they may have information about who fought there.

Other sites of interest:

This site has US Army history

http://www.ahco.army.mil/site/index.jsp

This is a fantastic site that has much more than military records, but old historical books which may have information about your ancestor. I have found books on Duxbury here.

http://www.archive.org/

This is from the TV channel, but you can look up all sorts of historical events on their site.

http://www.history.com/

This is a more modern site, but contains letters written by soldiers.

http://www.warletters.com/mission.html

Lastly, Curt Witcher’s library

http://www.allentownpl.org/

That’s all until next time. Please share your breakthroughs, your questions and other interesting tidbits of information. If you have an interesting Chandler story or picture let Barb know so she can put it in the Courier.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler News, General Geneology

August 3, 2010

THE ISAAC CHANDLER HOUSE OF DUXBURY, MASS by Carol May

Issac Chandler House

It is always great to see pictures those early Chandler homes, so when I unexpectedly came across the Isaac Chandler house listed for sale in the present day, an opportunity arose to share the pictures with all of you. The house is located at 14 Powder Point in Duxbury. For more pictures of both the interior and exterior go to the websites at the bottom of the article. The above aerial picture is courtesy of Joan McDonnell.

The Isaac Chandler house was built, c. 1809, just across the street from where the Blue Fish River comes into Duxbury bay. It is a lovely and beautifully remodeled Cape Cod house.

The only Isaac Chandler that we have record of, c. 1809, in Duxbury was born Oct. 3, 1784 in Kingston and died Nov. 13, 1837 in Duxbury. He married Abigail Delano of Duxbury. He is on record for also building the house around the corner on 31 Cove St. in 1829. I am hoping to get more information about Isaac and will update you about him in the future.

Isaac was possibly a shipwright and cabinet maker. His brothers-in-law, Asa and Henry Delano were cabinet makers.

His lineage starting with Isaac and going back was: Isaac Chandler +Abigail Delano> Ephraim Chandler+Mary (Molly) Doten> Nathaniel Chandler+Ruth Bradford> Philip Chandler+Rebecca Philips> Joseph Chandler+Martha Hunt> Joseph Chandler+Mercy ?> Edmund Chandler, the immigrant.

By the picture you can see it is a very big and grand house; however, it was not originally that big and grand. The story goes that about 70 years ago a small cottage was barged over from Nantucket Island and rolled up the beach, probably on logs, at high tide and placed behind the Isaac Chandler house.

The house, the ell and the cottage were unified in appearance and function during the remodeling. Fabrizio Construction remodeled the house twice and brought it to its current look.

The dormer windows were added to the original house many years ago. Originally, Cape Cod houses did not have dormer windows, although dormers became very popular later on. If you see a very old Cape Cod house with dormers, they were added at a later date. Windows on very old Cape Cod houses were generally at the gable ends of the houses. The door was at the center of the front of the house.

This is from Steve Fabrizio’s e-mail about the history of the house construction.

“The kitchen ell was added on a long time ago but not long after 1809 & I think at one time had a porch of some sort. I know it is still very old as it sits on a stone foundation with a dirt crawl space and hand hewn timbers for floor joists. I would guess it is within 20-30 years of the original construction seeing some of the old details and framing style.

The cottage, as we call it, was originally a 1 1/2 story fishing shack or wharf building of some sorts and dates back the early 1700′s on Nantucket. It was existing when we arrived but in very poor structural condition and needed extensive repair to sills & floors, but lots of old paneling & a ships ladder sets of winding stairs was still intact. We jacked the building up at one point and when we did it moved away from the house a bit and newspapers from the 1940′s fell out of the ceiling from a crack between the cottage and the kitchen ell. They were probably put there as insulation or as a time capsule of some sort”.

The front and original part of the house is still very much original with wide pine floors and three fireplaces, although a small powder room, carpeting and the like was added. The interior of the house has not been preserved as a museum, who would want to live in a house without running water or electricity today? While the original section is traditional, other touches have been used in the addition.

It may even come with its own ghost, Isaac perhaps? Steve reported that the first night the then new owners stayed in the house, they wondered if it was haunted. However, no more ghostly reports have been cited as to my knowledge.

Duxbury is a beautiful and well off community today with many historic homes, but it wasn’t always well off. In the period before the Revolutionary war, the thoroughly patriot town Duxbury was poor compared to its neighbor, the rich and most Tory town in New England, Marshfield. However, after the Revolution, Duxbury became wealthy from ship building which lasted until the 1850s when the demand for sailing ships declined. The great age of sail over, Duxbury had no money to remodel or tear down old homes in order to build new ones. Duxbury remained untouched, almost frozen in time, for many decades.

Building Highway 3 from Boston in the 20^th century allowed commuters to live in Duxbury and work in Boston, which really buoyed the town fortunes. As a consequence of the economic revival of the town, the old, historic homes have now been lovingly restored and cared for. So if you have about a spare million and half, you can buy the Isaac Chandler house and look out onto the bay as he must have done and cruise around in your boat which comes with the house. If not, enjoy the pictures!

There a many Chandler homes in Duxbury. We have pictures of a few in our Library in the Members’ Only section of the website. If you have pictures of any more, let us know so we can share.

Thank you to Joan McDonnell, Steve Fabrizio and Carolyn Ravenscroft of the Duxbury Rural Historical Society for contributing information for this story. If you have questions about the Isaac Chandler house, Steve would be glad to answer them.

SOURCES:

The Duxbury Rural Historical Society

http://www.duxburyhistory.org/

Coldwell Banker, Joan McDonnell

http://www.newenglandmoves.com/real-estate/property/14-powder-point-ave-duxbury-ma-02332/single-family-home/mls-71076781/996136?page_pos=5

Fabrizio Construction, Duxbury

http://www.fabrizioconstruction.com/powderpoint_duxbury.htm

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler Ancestors

July 1, 2010

JULY 2010 CHANDLER NEWS by Carol May

Happy Fourth of July! We have had a month of discoveries, updates and corrections, so lots of news. The Edmund Chandler Family Association is a research group open to anyone interested in Edmund Chandler and his family so we welcome discoveries and corrections.

Next time I hope to bring you the news from the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree which I attended. Instead of the story about Duxbury and the Stamp Act as, which was one of the events leading up to the Revolutionary War, we have update on Medal of Honor recipient, John B. Chandler.

JOHN B. CHANDLER MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENT UPDATE NEWS

John Chandler's Grave at Find A Grave.com - Photo by Don Morfe

John B. Chandler (mistakenly called James B. Chandler by the military authorities) was a Medal of Honor recipient for his Navy service during the Civil War. One receives or is awarded, but never “wins” a MOH as it is not a contest.

A recap of the Nov. 2009 story about him written by Russ Dodge:

“Civil War Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient. Served in the Union Navy during the Civil War as a Coxswain on board the “USS Richmond”. He was awarded the CMOH for his bravery during action against Confederate forces in Mobile Bay, Alabama on August 5, 1864. His citation reads “Cool and courageous although he had just come off the sick list, Chandler rendered gallant service throughout the prolonged action as his ship maintained accurate fire against Fort Morgan and ships of the Confederacy despite extremely heavy return fire. He participated in the actions at Forts Jackson and St. Philip, with the Chalmette batteries, at the surrender of New Orleans and in the attacks on batteries below Vicksburg”. His Medal was awarded to him on December 31, 1864.”

Here is John B. Chandler’s lineage going back starting with John B. Chandler, our MOH recipient: John B. Chandler>Samuel Chandler+Jerusha Bartlett>John B. Chandler+Hannah Sturtevant>Samuel Chandler+Nancy Brown>Samuel Chandler+Margaret Philips>Benjamin Chandler+Elizabeth Buck>Edmund Chandler, the immigrant. I got bogged down trying to trace his parents, Samuel and Jerusha (Bartlett) Chandler. I mistakenly tried to trace him back to Thomas instead of his brother Samuel. Samuel, Thomas, Martha and Abigail were the children of Samuel and Margaret (Philips) Chandler. The younger Samuel, and James B.’s ancestor, was the executor of his father’s estate and inherited the homestead, but we know very little about him, his wife or his descendants.

When I was at the Southern California Genealogical Jamboree, I went up to the NEHGS booth and asked one of their genealogists and to look John Chandler up, and he confirmed that lineage. They may have been a family of seafarers as was John B. Chandler, our MOH recipient, which could explain why there are not many records. Also, somewhere along the line, the family moved from Duxbury to Plymouth, so more information may be found in Plymouth.

SOURCES:

Find A Grave (listed under James B. Chandler)

“Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth” by William T. Davis (can be found online at the Plymouth US Gen Web project) for Samuel’s line.

Edmund Chandler Family Association “Edmund’s main lineage” database, Members’ Only section

US censuses

“Burial Hill Plymouth, Massachusetts…” available on line for the grave information for Samuel and Hannah.

Massachusetts marriages 1633-1850 www.familysearch.org (pilot section) for the marriage of John B. Chandler and Nancy Sturtevant

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

The genealogy TV show entitled “Who Do You Think You Are?” will be returning next season on NBC. When I hear when, I will let you all know. Last season, Lisa Kudrow, of the TV show “Friends”, Susan Sarandon, Spike Lee, Sarah Jessica Parker and others were profiled.

I know that many genealogy buffs in the audience groaned when the highly detailed and verified research was brought out instantly by a librarian or genealogist. “They make it look so easy,” was a common complaint.

They may have made it look easy, but it was not. I was told by a librarian/genealogist at the Jamboree that he was one of 40 people working on just Sarah Jessica Parker’s Gold Rush ancestor alone. Yes, forty. That was not a typo. Ancestry, who is one of the shows sponsors and does the research, really pulled out all of the stops making that show. Maybe the cure for that brick wall is to get famous and be invited to “Who Do You Think You Are?” and then have their Ancestry staff solve it for you!

Actress Brooke Shields, in a TV interview, explained how the process worked. She, along with several other famous people, was asked if they were interested. After replying “yes,” she heard nothing back for quite some time so she assumed that she wasn’t chosen. She said that she thought that her ancestors were probably too boring.

However, behind the scenes, the Ancestry people were working away checking out each celebrity’s family tree. They undoubtedly chose those with the most entertainment value and without insurmountable brick walls. Then, to her surprise, she got a call and was told to “dress warm” and off they went to Europe. She thought that she was Italian, but found out that she was French and had ancestors born in the Louvre! One of the French kings, I think.

When the show is on again, and you settle down in front of your TV for an hour of entertainment and, hopefully, enlightenment, take heart to know that there were squads of genealogists behind that show and it was not that easy.

A COUPLE OF VERMONT BRICKWALLS TUMBLE

A few years back an early member of the group could not find a birth record for her ancestor, Charles Chandler, of Vermont. She thought that his mother’s name was Fanny and thought that he descended from Edmund via his son, Benjamin, but it was a guess.

Flash forward several years and there is a query on the Chandler board about Eunice Chandler of Vermont. Now, because of Familysearch’s new, but at times quirky, pilot program, I found Eunice’s birth record and her siblings’ birth records with their parents’ names. A couple of the names were familiar, Charles and his mother Fanny. So while helping out with one brick wall, inadvertently another tumbled as well.

Here is Charles and Eunice’s line: Abner+Fanny (Abbot) Chandler>Abner+Sarah (Hill) Chandler>Joseph+Deborah (Bonney) Chandler>Benjamin+Mercy (Buck) Chandler>Edmund, the immigrant

DUXBURY NEWS

Billie, having finished her research on Capt. John Chandler, is now doing a summary of that work which we believe establishes his parentage and is the position of the ECFA. She is also working on another “mystery” Chandler, Zebedee of Plympton. The four we refer to as the “mystery” Chandlers are: Capt. John., Nathaniel, Mercy and Zebedee. She researched Nathaniel and his children and Mercy and her children previously.

One project she plans to tackle in the future, which will be of interest to all Edmund descendants, is researching Edmund, the immigrant’s, home farm in Duck Hill, Duxbury.

As Billie continues with her research, we will have more information to share.

THE ZEBEDEE CHANDLERS UPDATE AND CORRECTIONS

Last year Elsie and I researched Zebedee Chandlers including the one that Billie is now working on. There were several. However, since then I found new information and found that I made mistakes that need correcting. So here is an update on the Zebedees.

Original Zebedee was one of our “mystery” Chandlers. (See Duxbury News above) who lived in Plympton, Mass an offshoot of Duxbury. He was Lt. Zebedee, his son, also named Zebedee, was an enlisted man. I had their military service ascribed to the wrong Zebedee. Then found that I was looking for a Zebedee that did not exist! That happened to me before, but it turned out that used the name Chandler as an alias, but that is a different story.

We have original Zebedee of Plympton, #1, his son, Zebedee #2 and his son, Zebedee #3. However, Zebedee #3 did not have a son named Zebedee as I previously thought. So erase Zebedee #4 from your records. He did not exist.

The really confusing part, which was one of the reasons that led to the idea that there was a Zebedee #4, was the wives. We didn’t have it straightened out then and we have not completely straightened it out now. Zebedee #2 and Zebedee #3 were both were widowers and were getting up in years when they remarried, but which wife to which Zebedee? There were three wives in a short period of time. They were, Bathsheba Burt, Mrs. Mary Jane Wheeler and Betsey Briggs. I found an intention for marriage for Bathsheba, but no marriage record and thought that perhaps they never married; however, there was a woman age 40-50 in the 1840 census. Could that have been her?

Betsey, who I think was Betsey Briggs and not Bathsheba Burt as the nickname for Bathsheba is “Bashie,” died and was buried in Lakenham cemetery as was her child, Abby Maria Chandler. Zebedee #3 and his first wife, Ruth Cole are also buried in Lakenham. Most likely Betsey Briggs rather than Bathsheba was the mother of Abby and Zebedee #3’s wife.

Mrs. Mary Jane Wheeler probably married really old Zebedee #2. If Betsey Briggs married Zebedee #3, which Zebedee married Bathsheba Burt, if indeed they married? Zebedee #3 died a widower in 1849 so it appears that he outlived two or more wives.

This is just like the shell game trying to find the pea.

In those days there was no living together, no roommates of the opposite sex, you got married. So when there was an old widower and an old widow that couldn’t get by on their own anymore, they married.

Oh yes, as we wrote in the original story, there was also a Zebedee Chandler in Maine, but he descended from Capt. John and that Zebedee had a son named Zebedee, born April 23, 1815, but I think that he died young.

We are hoping to get gravestone pictures to help straighten this out. We will update you all again when we get the whole story.

DNA NEWS

As we are on the subject of the “mystery” Zebedee Chandler of Plympton, the ECFA is going to offer to pay for a probably 37 marker DNA test for a documented descendant of Zebedee Chandler, of Plympton Mass, born c. 1712.

Results could either include or exclude him as part of the Edmund Chandler family. This would help, not only Zebedee descendants, but help us with our work on the mystery Chandlers as a group. There is a slight possibility that Zebedee may have been part of the early Bridgewater Chandlers, who were not descendants of Edmund, or of Roger Chandler. Bridgewater was adjacent to Plympton. I am doing more research on this.

A generous donation allowed an offer to be made for a free DNA test for a documented Roger Chandler of Concord descendant. So far we have not found a Roger of Concord Chandler descendant to test, but are looking. We would like to know if Roger of Concord was part of the greater Edmund Chandler family, i.e. shared a common ancestor with Edmund. A match would lend support to the idea that Roger descended from Roger Chandler of Duxbury. It has long been believed that Roger of Duxbury was related to Edmund and this would lend more support to that idea, too.

The more that we can prove the more precise our research can be.

Ultimately, besides being able to confirm Edmund descendants in the US, we are hoping that DNA research will be able to help us locate Edmund’s English origins which are still unknown contrary to the incorrect stories out there on the internet and in old books. As always, send in your corrections, additions or comments.

If you have an interesting story or picture about an Edmund Chandler descendant, please share.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler News

Tagged as Chandler News

June 4, 2010

JUNE 10, 2010, MARKS 400TH ANNIVERSARY OF JOHN CHANDLER, AMERICA’S YOUNGEST IMMIGRANT BEFORE 1610 Special to the Courier

*NOTE: John Chandler was not an Edmund Chandler descendant.

Hixson, TN, June 4, 2010 – Four hundred years ago, nine-year-old John Chandler boarded the pinnace Hercules, smallest of the three-ship fleet that left Cowes, England, on April 1, 1610. Lord Delaware, recently named Governor of Virginia, was aboard the flagship De-La-Warr which led the small fleet westward, toward the shores of Virginia.

Fifteen days into the voyage, a major storm separated the Hercules from the other two ships. However, the Hercules continued westward and eventually caught up with Lord Delaware, who had anchored off the coast of Port Comfort the morning of June 6.

On Sunday, June 10, 1610, Lord Delaware’s fleet sailed up the James River and dropped anchor at Jamestowne. Perhaps the most excited among this group of adventurers was the young boy, John Chandler. After months of cramped living, he stepped off the Hercules onto Virginia’s soil. Thus he became—at nine years old—the youngest known immigrant to the colony prior to 1610.

No records have been uncovered which tells who his parents were, with whom he traveled to America, or why he came. It can only be surmised he arrived alone, with no known protector. He survived the constant Indian attacks and massacres, along with the deadly plagues and diseases that beset many of those earliest settlers. In fact, he grew to manhood, prospered, married, and sired at least two known sons (John, Jr. and Robert) from whom a majority of the 400 plus members of the Chandler Family Association descend.

He was among the first of Virginia’s – and Hampton’s – leading citizens, serving in what was then the militia, sitting as an early justice in the House of Burgesses, and tending to the land. Prior to his death about 1658, John Chandler owned nearly 3800 acres, a section of which included docking facilities along the Hampton Roads waterfront. Portions of Elizabeth City, North Hampton, and Newport News now sit on land he once owned.

On September 17-18, 2010, Chandler Family Association members will gather in Hampton, Virginia, to celebrate the 400^th anniversary year of their ancestor’s arrival. Special “members only” tours are planned, with stops in both Hampton and Jamestowne. Descendants will have a chance to walk the land where their immigrant ancestor John Chandler once trod.

Attendees will also receive an update on the Chandler DNA Project, which scientifically proves an unbroken genetic link back to the immigrant John Chandler. Also on the schedule for this year’s meeting is the introduction of the new CFA database, which has been in the development stage for more than four years and contains more than 80,000 records of Chandler individuals from around the world.

Anyone interested in Chandler genealogy is invited to attend. The Friday meeting begins at 8:00 a.m. September 17, 2010, at the Hampton Convention Center, Hampton, Virginia. There is a $15.00 fee for attendees who are not members of the CFA; however, this includes a one-year CFA membership and subscription to its award-winning newsletter.

More information about the annual meeting and the Chandler Family Association is at www.thecfa.org. Interested persons without computer access may contact Helen Chandler, CFA Secretary-Treasurer, at 901-355-5614 for information about membership, the annual meeting, accomodations and costs, or pre-registration for the special “members only” tours.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler Family Meeting

Tagged as chandler family meeting

June 1, 2010

JUNE CHANDLER FAMILY NEWS-by Carol May

This month seems to be a Benjamin line month, although we have news about other Chandlers as well. First, we would like to welcome Cynthia Chandler to the Edmund Chandler Family Association. We pick up her line at Rudolphus in our database. From Rudolphus going back we have: Rudolphus>Jesse>Benjamin>Joseph>Benjamin>Edmund, the immigrant.

In addition to Duxbury news, we are featuring an article on another Benjamin descendant and his family, but it is also about tracing children who appear to be orphans so it may contain research tips useful to all. We also have queries and questions that some of you may know the answer to, or at least have a clue. So if you do, let us know.

On June 11-13, I hope to be going to the Southern California Genealogy conference in Burbank, California. As there will be many lectures, and lots of booths, I hope to be sharing what I learn in an upcoming newsletter. If any of you live in Southern California, you can check out the SCGS website for more information in case you might want to go.

As always, if you find mistakes, let us know! We want to eliminate these. If you have an interesting Chandler tidbit, story or discovery, share it so we can put it in the newsletter! Also if you have found a book or resource let us know!

Finally, my computer has been acting up again. Hopefully, it will not crash, but if all goes silent on my end for a while that is probably the reason why.

DECIPHERING HANDWRITING

Need help deciphering old handwriting? Here are a couple of places to look.

There is http//amberskyline.com/treasuremaps/ or you can try Ancestry.com. At

Ancestry.com for free you can click on the tiny “help” in the upper right hand corner of the homepage and then click on the topic. Also, try a plain old Google search for “deciphering old handwriting” and you will find many articles.

These are not in depth studies by any means, but can get you started and get you thinking. Did you know that even literate people may have “signed” a document by using their mark instead of a signature? That fashions in the way numbers were written as well as the way were written letters change? That underlining sometimes took the place of abbreviations?

I remember being thrown off by the handwritten abbreviation for Massachusetts. The giant funny looking first “s” looked like either an “f”, a “p’ or a squiggle – Mafs? Maps? Ma?? I was a bit slow in finding out that was an old fashioned way to write the first “s” when there was a double “s.” So what looks kind of like “Jefse” is actually “Jesse”.

Another abbreviation that threw several of us off was the abbreviation for “Jonathan” in Capt. John Chandler’s Will. It was abbreviated “Jon A.” We thought that his middle name began with “A” like for Alden. However, it was just an abbreviation and they were not using middle names then, either.

While discussing odd handwriting, if you have looked at really old documents you probably came across “ye”. The “y” was a typesetting peculiarity for “th” carried over to handwriting. So “ye” is actually “the.”

What will future genealogists make of the little hearts that take the place of the dot on the “i” in those little girls, and sometimes not so little girls’, diaries? Handwriting fashions do change.

DUXBURY NEWS AND INQUIRIES

Billie has just finished her work on Joseph’s land in Duxbury. Joseph was Edmund, the immigrant’s son. Prior to her poring over hundreds and deeds and dozens of probates, little was know about his “home lands” other than just a general area and no one knew in modern times where his house was located. She has figured out the boundaries of his home lands and we believe located his house. We will be hearing more in the future.

LOUISE CHANDLER OF DUXBURY

Our member Billie was asked if we know anything about a Louise Chandler of Duxbury. I traced her line both through other sources then picked it up again in one of our databases. Here is her line: Louise>Howard>Howard>Thomas>Samuel>Benjamin>Edmund, the immigrant. But our inquirer, and now we, would like to know more about Louise as she was a most interesting person.

Louise was born in Duxbury in 1877 and married an actor named Carle Francis Stowe in 1905. However she may have married a Norman St. George or someone with the surname of Blake previously.

She ran the Shore Acres Inn in Duxbury. Her address was 333 Tremont St. which was the corner of Soule Ave. and Tremont St. The property had been in the Chandler family since 1825. That date would put the first Chandler to own the house most likely to have been Howard Chandler who married Sarah Bisbee, or possibly his Revolutionary War veteran father also named Howard. The inn was a haven for actors, actresses and theater people in the 1920’s and 1930’s. So if you know anything about the Shore Acres Inn or Louise and her cast of creative guests let us know.

DUXBURY WORLD WAR I VETERANS

We also had an inquiry about three Chandler World War I veterans from Duxbury. They were Arthur, Earle and Earnest Chandler. There were several Chandlers with those first names during that time period.

The three may have been brothers. I did find an Arthur and an Earle who brothers. There was also a third brother named Ernest. He was born in 1901 so he may or not have been a World War I veteran as he would have been very young. They were the sons of Henry E. and Edith A. Hunt. Henry’s lineage going back to Edmund was: Henry>Calvin>Martin>Asa>Asa>Phillip>Joseph>Joseph>Edmund, the immigrant.

There was also another Earnest Alden Chandler of Duxbury born on Nov. 4, 1893 in Duxbury, Mass. His parents were John A. and Susan I. (Delano) Chandler. So he is also a possibility as the age is more in line with being in the military during World War I. I think that this is his lineage:

Earnest Alden Chandler>John A.>Julius Bernard (AKA Bernard) >Isaac>Ephraim>Nathaniel>Phillip>Joseph>Joseph>Edmund, the immigrant.

If you have information about any of these World War I veterans let us know as they are listed on the Duxbury, World War I memorial.

ASA CHANDLER AND DIANA SIMMONS OF DUXBURY

I also got an inquiry from a descendant about his ancestors Asa Chandler and his wife Diana Simmons. I was able to fill in our inquirer about Asa’s lineage, but not Diana’s as we focus mainly on the Chandlers. Asa goes back to Edmund like this: Asa>Asa>Phillip>Joseph>Joseph>Edmund, the immigrant.

If you have information about Asa’s line or Diana Simmons, you can contact Jeff at Jeffworks@aol.com

Leave a Comment

Filed under Chandler News

Tagged as "June Chandler News"

June 1, 2010

WESTWARD MIGRATION by Barb Chandler

Understanding migration routes your ancestors took, who they traveled with, and where they settled is yet another instrument in your genealogical toolbox.

Westward migration started when the colonists landed in America. Some went inland a couple hundred miles in search of land they where they could raise crops. In 1790, 97% of Americans lived on the East Coast. Between 1841 and 1866 it is estimated that 350,000 to 500,000 people migrated westward.

Migration routes tended to go westward or southward. People usually traveled with relatives, friends or, neighbors and followed the same route as their ancestors. Before there were roads, people usually traveled along waterways, railroad routes, or Indian trails.

Some of the more popular migration routes are;

(1) Northeast of the Mississippi

(a) National Road that extended from Maryland, Pennsylvania,

West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, to Illinois. Appx. 780 miles

(b) Boston Post Road extended from the New England region

into New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and into

the Southern States. Appx. 800 miles

(c) Old Connecticut Path: From Boston west by southwest

through Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, has

two ending points in Hartford and Albany. 290 miles

(d) Iroquois or Mohawk Trail: West from Albany along the

Mohawk River through Utica and Rome with a branch

going through Fort Oswego to Lake Ontario. 190 miles

(e) Forbes Road: Pennsylvania route stretched from Carlisle to

the Forks of the Ohio River around present day Pittsburgh.

200 miles

(f) Great Warrior’s Trading Path: Through the Shenandoah

Valley covering Virginia and Tennessee. 250 miles

(g) Chicago Road: From Lake Michigan south by southwest

through Peoria and Springfield, east of St.Louis to

Kaskaskia on the Missouri River. Appx. 350 miles

(2) Migration Trails Southeast of the Mississippi

(a) Natchez-Lower Creeks Trail: East across lower Mississippi

and lower Alabama to Montgomery. 380 miles

(b) Natchez Trace (Chickasaw Trail): From Natchez,

Mississippi north by northeast to Nashville, Tennessee.

380 miles

(c) Jackson’s Military Road: From Nashville south by

southwest through Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and

ending in Louisiana at Lake Ponchartrain. 445 miles

(d) Federal Road: Began in Macon, Georgia and extended

southwest ending in Natchez, Mississippi. Appx. 380 miles

(e) Great Indian path (also known as the Scioto Trail): Straight

south from Sandusky Bay, on Lake Erie along the Scioto

River to Portsmouth on the Ohio River. 220 miles

(3) Migration Trails West of the Mississippi

(a) Royal Road (also known as El Camino Real): The 600

mile California Mission Trail that connected Alta’s

California 21 missions, 4 presidios, and several pueblos,

stretching from Mission San Francisco Sononma southward

into Baja California.

(b) Spanish Trail: This was a historical trade route which

connected the northern New Mexico settlements near Santa

Fe with those in the region surrounding the present site of

Los Angeles. Appx. 1,200 miles

(c) Gila Trail: Gila Trail follows river. It comes up from

Mexico along the San Pedro River, just west of Bisbee,

Arizona, until the river’s confluence with the Gila River,

then follows that westward to Yuma, Arizona. A branch of

the Gila Trail goes eastward along the Yuma River to the

San Pedro River, then follows the San Francisco River to

just over the state border into New Mexico, thence north to

Zuni, New Mexico. Appx. 1,500 miles

(d) Old San Antonio Road: This trail is located in Texas and

Louisiana. Parts of it were based on traditional Native

American trails. Its Texas terminus was about 35 miles

southeast of Eagle Pass at the Rio Grande in Maverick

County, and its northern terminus was at Natchitoches,

Louisiana. The road continued from Texas through to

Mexico City. Appx. 587 miles.

(e) Oregon Trail: The trail opened the Pacific Northwest. The

Oregon Trail was the overland emigrant trail for the

Missouri River to the Columbia River country, Oregon

Territory. Like all western trails it tended to follow rivers

where possible. It followed the Missouri River from St.

Louis to the Kansas River near Independence, Missouri,

then that river to the Little Blue River where it joined the

Platte River. It took the North Platte in western Nebraska to

the present Casper, Wyoming, followed the Sweetwater

River to South Pass, and then went southwest to Fort

Bridger Wyoming. At this point the trail split with the

Mormon Trail, which continued southwest to the Great Salt

Lake, while the Oregon Trail went northwest to Fort Hall,

near Pocatello, Idaho. Over the Blue Mountains in

northeaster Oregon, then down the Columbia River to

Willamette Valley, where the early settlers finished their

journey. Appx. 2,170 miles

(f) Mormon Trail: The Mormon trail followed the North banks

of the Platte and North Platte Rivers, unlike the Oregon

Trail which followed the South banks. West of Fort

Laramie, however, the two trails united and followed the

same track until the Mormon Trail turned southwestward

toward the Great Salt Lake. Appx. 1,300 milestoward the Great Salt Lake. Appx. 1,300 miles[1]

[1] Westward Migration and Genealogical Research in the United States http://bsgen.org/BSGEN/Migrationspeech.pdf

Leave a Comment

Filed under General Geneology, Westward Migration

Tagged as Genealogy

June 1, 2010

THE HIRAM CHANDLER FAMILY: SEARCHING FOR a FAMILY OF ORPANS by Carol May

Did Hiram and Lucy (Peters) Chandler die and leave their children orphans? We still don’t know for sure, but research indicates that this was so. Reading about this family, even if it is not your Chandler line, might prove helpful as it is a study of finding orphans.

A couple of years ago I answered a query about Hiram and members, Elsie and Cornelia and I helped connect Hiram to Ozias Chandler, a descendant of Edmund, the immigrant.

Now flash forward a couple of years and we have a new member, Chris, whose brick wall is, again, Hiram and also his son David. This time we have more clues from not only Chris, but another two descendants as well as Chris’ family notes.

Hiram’s line going back to Edmund is: Hiram+Lucy Peters>Ozias+Betsey Nash>Simeon+Eunice Robards>Joseph+Elizabeth Delano>Benjamin+Elizabeth Buck>Edmund+?, the immigrant.

Here is a brief explanation of how this Chandler family came to Vermont. Joseph and his sons, including Simeon, left Duxbury, Massachusetts for Connecticut where Simeon married Eunice Robards. Simeon had two daughters and only one son, Ozias, who were born in New Milford, Connecticut. Later, Simeon and family moved to Vermont. Ozias married Betsey Nash in 1801 in Vermont.

Below is information about Ozias Chandler’s marriage to Betsey Nash and their children from a Rootsweb family tree:

Marriage 1 Betsey NASH b: FEB. 24, 1786

Married: DEC. 14, 1801

Children

Ira CHANDLER b: SEPT. 8, 1802 in Fairfield, VT
Infant CHANDLER b: MARCH 8, 1804 in Fairfield, VT
Infant CHANDLER b: MARCH 4, 1805 in Fairfield, VT
Infant CHANDLER b: APRIL 19, 1806 in Fairfield, VT
Norman CHANDLER b: APRIL 18, 1807 in Fairfield, VT
Matilda CHANDLER b: JULY 31, 1809 in Fairfield, VT
Elvira CHANDLER b: JUNE 17, 1811 in Fairfield, VT
Hiram CHANDLER b: JULY 24, 1813 in Fairfield, VT
Myron CHANDLER b: MARCH 27, 1816 in Fairfield, VT
Infant CHANDLER b: APRIL 6, 1817 in Fairfield, VT
Emily CHANDLER b: APRIL 14, 1818 in Fairfield, VT
Betsey CHANDLER b: MAY 7, 1819 in Fairfield, VT
Harriet CHANDLER b: JULY 8, 1820 in Fairfield, VT
Orreta CHANDLER b: APRIL 19, 1822 in Fairfield, VT

Hiram was born in Fairfield, Vermont. By 1850 (see census below) he was living in Belvidere, Lamoille, Vermont with his wife Lucy (Peters) Chandler.

US 1850 census for Belvidere, Lamoille, Vermont

This census list does not include later born David and Cornelia.

Hiram Chandler age 37, male

Lucy “ 31, female

Simeon “ 11, male

Elizabeth “ 9, female

Jane “ 7, female

Rachel “ 5, female

George A. “ 3, male

Anne E. “ 1, female

ARE THE CHILDREN ORPHANS?

Hiram and Lucy seem to drop off of the map after the 1850 census. So at a dead end with the parents, the next move would be to try to trace the children.

This is where knowing as much as possible about the entire family comes into play. Often by just focusing on your one ancestor instead of the whole family is the reason that you have hit a brick wall.

I had a list of all of Hiram’s siblings plus their wives from a book found in World Vital Records. When parents died in the old days, the children were usually dispersed amongst the relatives and occasionally friends. If they were older they started working.

Working both backward and forward in the censuses, A David Chandler was found in the 1880 census for Massachusetts. He was in Massachusetts also in the 1900 census so this could be him. However, this 1880 David was born in New York, but that could have been a mistake.

Then going back to the 1860 US census, here was an 8-year-old David Chandler living with Oscar and Emma Crouch in Bombay, New York. This could be the right David and could explain why the David in the 1880 census was listed as being born in New York, but who were Oscar and Emma Crouch?

It turns out that Emma was Emily (Chandler) Crouch. David was living with his aunt (Hiram’s sister) and uncle.

However, one child living with an aunt and uncle does not make him an orphan as it could have been temporary, but then I found who appeared to be his sisters. Rachel, age 15, doing housework and Jane, age 17, a servant, listed in the 1860 US census for Vermont. Cornelia was found in Vermont marriage records in 1881with her parents listed as Hiram and Lucy, but prior to that in the 1880 census she was listed as a domestic.

Families do not function in a vacuum. When Ozias and Betsey moved to Sterling, Massachusetts, his son, Norman and his family, already lived there. According to the 1850 US census for Sterling, Worcester, Massachusetts Ozias was living next to his daughter Oretta (Chandler) Stuart and his family.

Eventually grandsons, Simeon and David and granddaughter, Elizabeth, also moved to Massachusetts. Elizabeth married there, but returned to Vermont. They all most likely moved to Massachusetts for work in the factories. The beginning of the Industrial Revolution took place in nearby Lowell, Massachusetts and that whole area was burgeoning with cotton mills and clothing factories.

There was no sign of either Hiram or Lucy Chandler in either Vermont or Massachusetts.

This seemed to confirm suspicions their parents died otherwise these children would not have been scattered. Further complicating the search was that some the children were listed with their middle names first in some records. I was looking for Ann E., George A. and Hiram David when I should have been looking for Eliza Ann, Allen George and David Hiram Chandler.

Cornelia Chandler’s marriage record shows her birth as 1856 in Burlington, Vermont. So most likely parents, Hiram and Lucy, died between 1856 and 1860 which was the next US census.

The discovery of one child in an area often meant that relatives also lived in the same area. The census, and that includes censuses from more than one source, and Familysearch’s Record Search Pilot can be quirky at times. Sometimes you can find them once, but not again and sometimes you can’t find them at all. If someone cannot be found in a straight forward manner by typing in their name and information, use “back door” routes. Here are a few useful back door routes:

When you find one ancestor in an area, check for more with a surname only search. That’s how I found Cornelia Chandler who I didn’t even know existed. Using the Familysearch Record Search Pilot, I typed in only her surname and then Shelburne, Chittenden, Vermont and that is how she was found.

Look for the children of the ancestor that you are searching for. Sometimes people are inexplicably left out of census transcriptions, but they are there in the census image. David AKA David H. Chandler was found in New Hampshire by searching for his son Charles H. Chandler with whom he was living. As “H” was his middle initial it also made sense that his name was David Hiram Chandler not Hiram David Chandler.

If there are no birth records try marriage records as they often give the names of the parents.

Lastly, working together and sharing clues can break down those brick walls. We also always count on members of the group to catch those pesky errors!

The information that was gathered seems to answer the questions about this family, but to really dot all of the “I’s” and cross all of the “T’s” enough for membership to the Mayflower Society, the DAR or Sons of the Revolutions, more research needs to be done and there is more information out there. You don’t have to research the whole family, just until you come to your ancestor who is already in their records.

Below are the details on the individual children of Hiram and Lucy. At the end of this article there is information on where to look for more information on their wives including a book that traces Betsey (Nash) Chandler’s family heritage back to 1389 AD!

DAVID CHANDLER

David Chandler

1860 US census Bombay, New York

Age 8

Birthplace Vermont

Living with Oscar and Emma Crouch.

According to the Nash book, Hiram’s sister was Emily Chandler who married Oscar Crouch. Emma was probably a nickname. So he was the right David as he was living with his aunt and uncle.

As Chris had family notes for his ancestor saying that David or Hiram David (it turns out that he was David Hiram) was the grandson of Ozias Chandler, David was the one to start with.

David Chandler

1880 census Lowell, Middlesex, Massachusetts

Age 25

Birthplace New York

Parents’ birthplace: New York

Worked in a cotton mill

He was probably the correct David as he was raised in New York and that may explain why the census said that he was born in New York.

Dave Chandler

1900 US census Lowell, Middlesex, Mass

Born Aug. 1853

Birthplace Vermont

Parents’ birthplace Vermont

Occupation: Watchman

Widowed

Boarder along with his sons:

Charles, born Aug. 1885

Stephen born April 1881. He worked in a cotton mill.

David H. Chandler

1920 US census for Dover, Strafford, New Hampshire

Est. birth year 1852

Birthplace: Vermont

The head of the household was Charles Chandler, his son, who was a carpenter for the railroad.

Annie, Charles wife, born Scotland

Warren D., 11

Howard C. 9

Mabel F., 8

Florence O. 2 2/12

I do not have a membership to Ancestry, but it appears that there is a family tree which includes David H. Chandler. It appears that David died in New Hampshire, but that would have to be investigated further in order to verify it.

SIMEON CHANDLER

Actually, he was listed as Simeon C. Chandler in other later documents. From www.familysearch.org (Record Search Pilot section) I found the census information and that he served in the CivilWar. He was living in Massachusetts at the beginning of the war. He did have relatives in Massachusetts so he may have moved by at least about 1860.

US 1870 census for Lowell, Worcester, Massachusetts

Simeon C. Chandler age 30, born in Vermont

Susan, wife

Nettie, daughter, age 6.

Simeon Chandler

US 1880 Census for Worcester, Worcester, Massachusetts

Age 40

Birthplace: Vermont

Parents’ birthplace: Vermont, age 40,

Single.

He was probably living in a boarding house as there were many other residents and he was not the head of household. His wife probably died between 1870 and 1880 as he was listed as a widower many years later on his death certificate.

Simeon C. Chandler

Civil War Pension Index Cards

There were four cards for Simeon C. Chandler for Massachusetts service. One card mentioned service in the Massachusetts Light Artillery while another referred to service in the infantry. More details can be found on the pension cards. It is also possible that there was more than one Simeon C. Chandler in the Civil War serving from Massachusetts.

Simeon C. Chandler

Massachusetts Death Records

Simeon C. Chandler died January 27, 1910, age 70, of pneumonia, but the primary cause was senile dementia. His parents were listed as Hiram Chandler and Lucy Peters. His birthplace was listed at East Fairfield, Vermont. Mrs. R.A. Bucklin was the informant.

ELIZABETH B. CHANDLER

Massachusetts transcribed marriage

Bride: Elizabeth B. Chandler

Groom Edward R. Lane

Marriage date: May 11, 1861

Marriage place: Lowell, Massachusetts

Bride’s father’s name: Hiram

Bride’s mother’s name: Lucy

This is speculation, but could the “B” in her name stand for the family name of Bliss? Edward’s middle name was given as “Burrell” in other records, so most likely the “R” was a mistake. It appears that Elizabeth may have died before the 1880 census as she is not listed with Edward, but the children are. He is listed as married, but that might be a mistake. Edward did remarry in 1899 according to Vermont marriage records.

It appears that Edward and Elizabeth moved to Shelburne, Chittendon, Vermont from Massachusetts as Vermont is where Edward Lane is found in the 1880 census. Their son was listed as born in 1872 on transcribed marriage records with parents Edward Lane and Elizabeth Chandler. This information came from www.familysearch.org (pilot program).

However this information was found indirectly by searching for all Chandlers in Shelburne, Chittendon, Vermont.

JANE CHANDLER

Jane Chandler

1860 US Census for Cambridge, Lamoille, Vermont.

She lived with Joseph W. Turner and his wife Mary P. Turner. She was listed in the census as doing housework.

1870 US Census for Shelburne, Chittenden County, Vermont

Giles Andrews Head of household

Jane age 26, born Vermont wife

Emma D. Anderson, age 4

By the 1880 census Giles had remarried so Jane probably died between 1870 and 1880. Giles married twice more and his 53 page probate is available on the Familysearch Records search pilot site. Their daughter, Emma, also predeceased Giles.

Vermont marriages:

Francis A. Bailey groom

Emma D. Andrews, bride

Bride’s parents:

Giles Andrews

Jane Chandler

The age is right for Jane Chandler to be the daughter of Hiram and Lucy and there were no other Jane Andrews in Shelburne as far as I know, but more work would have to be done to prove her descent from Hiram and Lucy.

RACHEL CHANDLER

1860 US Census for Burlington, Chittenden, Vermont

Hollan Howard, age 58 (Later censuses have him as Holand)

Lucinda Howard, age 48

Rachel Chandler, age 15, servant.

Rachel was found in the 1910 census living with her brother, Allen Chandler (see Allen G. Chandler below) . It appears that she married but did not have children.

ELIZA ANNE CHANDLER

Eliza A. Chandler

She is listed as Anne E. Chandler in the 1850 census, but a search for an Anne Chandler born about 1849 proved fruitless. However, there was a gravestone at Find A Grave that provided the answers. It appears that she was probably Eliza Ann Chandler. Her gravestone in the Center Cemetery, Belvidere, Lamoille, Vermont read:

Eliza, daughter of Hiram and Lucy Chandler Died Oct 20, 1851 aged 2 yrs 11 mos.

CORNELIA CHANDLER

1880 US Census for Vermont.

Cornelia Chandler, age 25

Born Vermont and parents born Vermont

Domestic servant

Vermont Marriages (from Familysearch pilot)

Bride: Cornelia Chandler born 1856

Birth place Burlington, Vt.

Marriage, April 6, 1881

Shelburne, Vt.

Groom: William T. Miller

Bride’s parents Hiram Chandler, Lucy Peters.

Vermont Marriages (from Familysearch pilot)

Bride: Cornelia Miller

Bride’s birthdate: 1857

Bride’s birthplace East Fairfield, Vermont

Bride’s age: 49

Marriage date: Dec. 29, 1906

Shelburne, Vermont

Bride’s parents: Hiram Chandler and Lucy Peters

Groom: Horace Frederick Saxton

This was her second marriage.

Vermont Death Records (from Familysearch pilot)

Cornelia Chandler

Date of death: January, 8, 1930

Age: 78

Place: Shelburn, Chittenden, Vermont

Parents: Hiram Chandler, Lucy Peters

Spouse: Horace Saxton

ALLEN G. CHANDLER

George A. was a mystery, until one of the correspondents about this family wrote that her ancestor was Allen G. Chandler son of Hiram and Lucy. It seems that George A. and Allen G. was the same person with the name transposed. Allen was a Baptist minister. He may have also been a minister for the Church of the Nazarene. In addition to his ministerial duties, he was listed as tub manufacturer in the Belvidere, Lamoille, Vermont directory for 1883-84.

1860 US Census for Belvidere, Lamoille, Vermont

Allen Chandler, age 13 resided in the household of Jere? and Jemima Shattuck

1870 US Census for Belvidere, Lamoille, Vermont

Allen Chandler, age 23

Farm laborer

Permelia, wife

Cora, daughter, age 1

1880 US Census for Montgomery, Franklin, Vermont

Allen Chandler, age 32 works in ? shop

Born in Vermont and parents born in Vermont

Permelia, age 33

Jennie, age 5, daughter

Arthur, age 3, son

William age 11/12 of year

Cora had died by then and her grave stone can be found at Find A Grave.