John Chambers

Front matter

H

Glass Book

IOWA BIOGRAPHICAL SERIES

Author's Preface

The story of John Chambers, second Governor of the Territory of Iowa, reaches from the coast State of New Jersey during the Bevolutionary War out through the State of Kentucky in the time of its early settlement and growth to the pioneer Territory of Iowa in the days when it was making awkward but positive strides toward Statehood. It runs through more than seventy of the years of early development of the Nation, and of that development it tells a part.

To the State of Kentucky he gave more than forty of his active years; to the Territory of Iowa less than five. Yet these scant five years constitute the most useful period of his public service. In them came to fruition the experience of the long preceding period; and in them came the opportunity offered by a position of greater influence.

The writing of the present volume was undertaken upon the suggestion of Dr. Benj. F. Shambaugh, Superintendent of The State Hisx AUTHOR'S PREFACE

torical Society of Iowa and editor of the Iowa Biographical Series. Upon a preliminary trip to Kentucky, Dr. Shambaugh found in the possession of Mrs. Henry Chambers of Louisville an unpublished manuscript autobiography of John Chambers and other valuable letters and papers which were kindly loaned to The State Historical Society of Iowa — the autobiography for purposes of publication, and the other papers for use in the preparation of a biography. Further material was collected in Iowa, in various towns of Kentucky, and in Washington, D. C.

The author desires to make the most grateful acknowledgments to Mr. John Chambers of Louisville, Kentucky, a grandson of the Governor, to his mother Mrs. Henry Chambers, and to Mr. Harry Brent Mackoy of Covington, Kentucky, a great grandson of Governor Chambers, who have not only made accessible valuable manuscript sources but have done all in their power to give assistance and encouragement to the work.

Acknowledgements are due to Colonel Reuben T. Durrett of Louisville, Kentucky, for unrestricted access to his large private library which contains files of newspapers and rare books

AUTHOR'S PREFACE xi

obtainable nowhere else and without which parts of the present volume could not have been written.

For the loan of letters and for other valuable assistance the author is indebted to Mrs. Hannah Chambers Forman of Chicago, Mrs. H. H. Woodall of Covington, Kentucky, Mr. Throckmorton Forman of Cincinnati, Mr. John W. Townsend of Lexington, Kentucky, Mr. W. H. Mackoy of Covington, Kentucky, Dr. Thomas Pickett of Maysville, Kentucky, to Colonel Maltby and to Mr. Lucien Maltby and his family who now live in the old home of John Chambers at Cedar Hill near Washington, Kentucky, and to the officials of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the Library of Congress, and the Office of Indian Affairs in Washington, D. C.

In particular the author is grateful for the kindly aid and encouragement given by the editor of the series, Dr. Benj. F. Shambaugh, from the inception of the work down to the reading of the last proofs.

John Carl Parish

Contents

I. From Ireland to Kentucky 1

II. Early Life 12

III. A Kentucky Lawyer 18

II Eakly Life

Late in the month of October, 1794, Rowland Chambers and his family disembarked at Limestone and turned their steps toward the uplands of Kentucky. It is perhaps not to be doubted that as they toiled up the hills back of the town they paused now and then; for, as the road turned back and forth in its sinuous way, they could look down upon the roofs of the town and out over the tops of trees that burned red and yellow and brown on either shore and see running* smoothly between the broad waters of the Ohio.

Once upon the heights, however, the land of their wayside dreams spread out before them; and the thought of the noble river that had brought them thither faded from their minds as their eyes fell upon the promised land. They had not traveled far when the town of Washington came into view. Strung along both sides of the road were more than a hundred houses, sheltering a sturdy and active pioneer coni-

EARLY LIFE 13

munity. In this year of 1794 one Lewis Craig built, on the brow of a little declivity that sloped down to the east side of the road, a court-house whose ancient walls still speak of the days of the town's early fame. 14 And while these walls rose and took form from the lime rocks of the surrounding hills, there walked into the village a fourteen year old boy whose life was associated with the building before he was out of his teens and whose voice for near half a century rung frequent in its halls.

Kowland Chambers settled at once in Washington. Young John Chambers had not been fortunate in his educational advantages. As he himself expressed it, he could scarcely read or write intelligibly and his language was "corrupted and mixed up with a sort of 'low dutch' " from the associations of his earlier boyhood days in New Jersey. 15 To aid in the support of the family, John found an opportunity to clerk in the store of a man named Moore, who had just come to Washington and had opened up a small stock of goods. His employer paid for the boy's board in exchange for his services. Later, on somewhat the same basis, he clerked for a Mr. Wiggins.

Thus prosaically, and with little chance for mental development, the winter of 1794 passed.

In the following spring the older brother William, who had pointed the way to the West, again came forward in the role of a godfather and offered to send John to school at Transylvania Seminary in Lexington. In March, 1795, the boy entered, and attended the school until the summer vacation in July. At this time a difficulty existed between the President of the institution (Mr. Harry Toulman) and the Trustees. The doubt as to the resumption of the school, together with the perhaps more vital fact that his brother could not see his way clear to continue his support, led him to return home. These four months, then, present the sum total of the higher scholastic education of John Chambers. Never again did the opportunity come for a renewal of his studies — a fact which he regretted and lamented to the end of his days.

His return to the household at Washington was not, apparently, attended with cordiality on the part of his father. In his Autobiography he tells of his home-coming as follows :

I determined to return home, to which my father yielded with manifest displeasure, and was very stern and distant with me when I got home. I found he was cultivating a little field of corn, & the morning after my return I got up early and fed & watered his old

EARLY LIFE 15

horse and went to ploughing — Nothing was said, and after several days diligent labors I had put the little field in good order, and then, for the first time went down town, where I found a new store just opening under the firm of Brownson and Irvin, and soon became their assistant behind the counter. In all these employments a part of the agreement was that they were to pay my boarding at home, so that by early rising I could always make my mother's morning fires and bring water for the days consumption. 16

It was not long, however, until Eowland Chambers and his wife removed from Washington to Augusta, where their daughter, Mrs. Eobert Davis, was now living. But John remained where he was and for two years sold goods across the counter of the village store.

There came a change in the fortunes of the young clerk in the year 1797. The position of Clerk of the Washington District Court was then held by a lawyer named Francis Taylor. 17 In the latter part of this year Mr. Taylor, desiring a deputy, prevailed upon the employers of John Chambers to let the young man go into the Clerk's office in that capacity. He agreed with John to board and clothe him, and urged the value of the use he could make in his spare moments of Taylor's library and in particular of his law books. An indenture until he attained his majority was proposed which, says

Chambers, "I agreed to, with the remark that an Indenture of that kind would do very little good, as if a sense of duty did not bind me, the indenture would not, and I never heard of the indenture afterward ' ' .* 8

On the 18th of October, 1797, John Chambers took the oath of office required of the Deputy Clerk and began his work. 19 Here was an occupation both congenial and profitable and it seems to have elicited his most diligent efforts. During the hours unoccupied in recording cases and performing other duties, he applied himself to the study of law. At the same time, during his eighteenth year, he served as Clerk of the Board of Trustees of the Town of Washington. 20 Thus was he acquiring before he was out of his teens an invaluable training for his life work.

He must have performed his duties to the eminent satisfaction of Mr. Taylor, for in the spring of 1800 he withdrew to his farm on the Ohio Eiver, leaving Chambers to carry on the office and receive the fees. Taylor still nominally retained the clerkship in hopes that it would some time develop into a position of greater value. This change afforded Chambers a fair living, the fees in the first year amounting to somewhat less than four hundred dollars.

EARLY LIFE 17

Out of this sum he supported himself and sent a considerable portion for the use of his mother at Augusta in the neighboring county of Bracken.

The three years in which John Chambers had had access to the library of Francis Taylor had been well spent. He had not only read a great deal of law but he had spent many hours with books of a general nature. He reached his twentieth year in October of 1800 and in the next month was given a license to practice law. 21 Thus ended his score of years of apprenticeship ; and with the century he began his career as a lawyer.

Ill

John Chambers came early into association with the profession of law. He was only seventeen when he entered the office of Francis Taylor and helped record the trials before one of the busiest district courts in Kentucky; and he had not yet attained his majority when he came into possession of all the rights and privileges that pertained to the bar. He retained his position as Deputy Clerk and began to gather a considerable practice in the inferior courts. Soon he was enabled to bring his father and mother back to Washington to live with him. 22 During the session of 1801-1802 the legislature of Kentucky abolished the District and Quarter Session Courts and established a system of Circuit Courts in their stead. The clerkship of this new court was an office of some remuneration, and two candidates immediately appeared. One was Thomas Marshall, who had been Clerk of the Quarter Session Court, and the second was Francis Taylor, Clerk of the old District Court. John Chambers had now been performing the duties of Clerk for several years, and knew the work thoroughly. His friends urged him to become a candidate for the new office. The same advice was finally given him by one of the three judges in whom the power of appointment was vested. This judge promised Chambers his own vote and expressed the belief that one of the other judges would also vote for him. Upon these assurances Chambers entered the field. 23

He was at once denounced for opposing the candidacy of Francis Taylor. But he expressed the belief that in the years of his deputy clerkship he had rendered quid pro quo and that justice did not require that he refuse to be a candate for any office for which Francis Taylor had aspirations. There were, however, further complications in the matter. During the preceding year the young and lovely Margaret Taylor, a half sister of Francis Taylor, had come out from Maryland to visit her brother. The Deputy Clerk forthwith lost his heart, and at the time of the clerkship appointment the two were engaged to be married but had told no one of the fact. In his Autobiography Chambers thus describes the outcome of this interesting situation:

I consulted her about withdrawing from the contest as the evident effect of it was to estrange her brother and myself and insure his opposition to her fathers consent to our marriage. She met the question as only such a woman could. She said my withdrawal and our subsequent marriage would give rise and plausibility to the imputation that she was sold to me as the price of my withdrawal from the contest, and altho she knew her brother, being an only son, had great influence with her father, she did not fear it. She had been raised in his bosom from her very infancy, without a mother, and she knew he had confidence in her judgment and prudence and would not sacrifice her happiness under any influence that could be brought to bear upon him. Mr. Taylor was elected Clerk and I soon after informed him of my engagement to his sister, and stated my object in doing so, to be to give him time to communicate with his father, as his sister & myself were both about to address him on the subject, the reply was very stern and to the effect that he would immediately send his sister home to her father. I told him such had been her wish, but that her health was then very delicate and I had earnestly advised her against encountering the journey of 500 miles on horseback (then the only means of travel), he answered that she could as well make the journey then as when she came to Kenty I reminded him that more than half the journey had then been made on the river and that her health was then good, he persisted however in saying that she should return immediately to her father, and upon my telling him that in that case I should accompany her. he answered abruptly that I should not do it — here I thought forbearance ought to stop and I told him so, and that I would in defiance of him or anybody else go with her, and that any attempt to obstruct me would be fatal to who ever made it — That if he would treat her kindly until her fathers pleasure was knowfn], that it was her determination & mine for the present to submit to it. I heard no more of her being sent away, and in due time her father answered her & her brothers & my letters, regret [t]ing that she had placed her affections upon a young man who[m] he did not know and could not judge of, and especially one whom her brother disapproved of. To Mr. Taylor he expressed his regret at what had taken place, but said he had raised that daughter without a mother and she had inspired him not only with the most unbounded affection, but with great confidence in her judgment and prudence, and to her he was willing under all circumstances to commit her fate in the matter of her marriage, and that his, Mr. Taylor's opposition to her marriage he hoped would at once cease. 24

On June 16, 1803, they were married at Mr. Taylor's house — Chambers himself describing it as " a melancholy scene" whereat "one young man at my request, and one young lady at hers, attended." 25

The failure to secure the appointment as Clerk was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to John Chambers. He turned his full attention now to the practice of law, making rapid strides in his profession. The dockets of the Mason County Circuit for these years have apparently not been preserved. The only records which give any clue to the amount of business enjoyed by individual members of the Mason County bar are two manuscript volumes entitled Record of Personal Actions and covering the years 1803, 1804, and 1805. 26 An examination of this official record shows that in the October term of 1803 somewhere near seventy-five cases came up before the Circuit Court of Mason County. In about thirty of these John Chambers was the counsel for the plaintiff. 27 In the September term of the following year, out of a total of fifty-three cases Chambers was employed by the plaintiff in twenty-three; while the remaining thirty cases were divided among six different attorneys. 28 In the September term of 1805 thirty-one cases were tried, and in twenty of these actions Chambers appeared for the plaintiff; while lawyers of such prominence as Adam Beatty, Will Mc- Clung, Alexander K. Marshall, Martin P. Marshall, and others divided the remaining eleven among them. 29 The records give no indication of the counsel for the defense. When it is considered that John Chambers was at this time between the ages of twenty- three and twenty-five, and that the Mason County Circuit contained one of the strongest bars in the Commonwealth, the above record would seem to be an index of rather remarkable legal success.

Chambers had not been married four years before he was called upon to mourn the loss of his wife Margaret. She died on March 4, 1807, and left no children. 30 Some months later he made a visit to. the home of his father-in-law, Ignatius Taylor, 31 at Hagerstown, Maryland; and his own account of his meeting with Hannah Taylor, the half sister of his first wife, is too finely naive to be omitted. It is given here verbatim.

On a subsequent visit to Maryland I found your dear and excellent mother, just in the full bloom of womanhood, admired by every one, and sought after by some gay dis[s]apated and unpromising young men of "the first families" I at once saw her danger, her mother had died two or three years before and she was at the head of her fathers family. I advised her aunts and sisters to caution her against two young men particularly, as unworthy of her, but the answer was, they were young men of great promise and well connected and would be good matches for any girl in the County. My first wife had been dead but a few months and I felt the delicacy of proposing so soon to marry again. I pondered seriously upon it, and ask[ed] myself the question shall, I leave this young and lovely creature to be sacrificed to a reckless sot, or enter the lists and carry her off, to wait longer may be fatal to her future happiness. I hesitated no longer and in a few days she flew to my arms for affection and protection, and no wife ever more deserved or enjoyed both — here let me remark that both the young gentlemen, I had wished her to avoid, married lovely girls whose parents were rich (one of them a cousin of your mother) and ended their respective carries [careers] before middle age in great poverty and perfectly besotted. 32

The marriage took place on October 29, 1807, It must have been about this time that Chambers determined to build himself a home. Withdrawn a little from the row of houses that constituted Washington, was a hill sloping in a long gradual descent to a road parallel to the Maysville Pike. On the crest of this hill, facingdue east, John Chambers erected a well built frame house that, somewhat remodeled, still stands proudly holding its own against the decay that a century has brought upon the once proud village. 33

The wide slope of lawn before the house was thick with blue-grass, and with locust trees that whitened with bloom in the early summer and filled the air with fragrance. To the left were trees of June apples and Harvest apples — of which the master of the house was so fond that in later years when he was in Iowa his relatives carefully hoarded them for his occasional homecomings. 34 At the foot of the hill a stone wall guarded the roadside, and along this wall and here and there in the lawn Chambers planted cedar trees which he brought home as foot-long shoots in his saddle-bags from the Blue Lick hills. After a hundred years these cedars, now well grown, still keep watch over the place which so long ago the owner christened in their honor, Cedar Hill.

The house which Chambers built on the hilltop was in keeping with its surroundings. It was a two story frame house with a wide hall in the center and large rooms on either side. A living-room about twenty feet square opened on the right of the hall and a dining-room of like size on the left. Upstairs were large bed-rooms which like the rooms below were fitted with large fire-places and wood mantels. Behind the house he built a cabin for the servants, and to the south a stone dairy house.

For more than a third of a century the life of John Chambers was centered at Cedar Hill. It was the birthplace and early home of his children. Here he dwelt on the edge of the busy little village and wrote out speeches, planned campaigns, and worked over his legal cases. Here in later years he entertained the friends of his political life. Clay and Crittenden and scores of others found open house at Cedar Hill. On the broad lawn the lights often swung from the locust and cedar trees, while neighbors and friends made merry at a sociable or at a celebration after a political victory. And for days before these occasions the household down to the small children was kept busily at work grinding coffee and blanching almonds.

Two ivory miniatures made about this time show John Chambers as a sturdy young man with short brown hair and a clear eye, and Mrs. Hannah Chambers as a young woman of rare attractiveness and beauty. 35 She was also a woman of social abilities and accomplishments. John J. Crittenden used to say that Chambers ought to be made Minister to France because of his wife's diplomacy and her fluency in speaking the French language. 36

The years following his second marriage, though not lacking in legal opportunities, did not prevent John Chambers from indulging other fancies. The raising of hemp was a prominent occupation in Kentucky, and the manufacture of hemp rope was a naturally resulting industry. So Chambers built, on the land south of his house, a rope-walk and began to make rope for the market. Here under the long sheds the men all day long walked backwards, twisting the strands of hemp fibre into cables and stern fasts. The undertaking did not at first prove a financial success, for Chambers soon found himself deep in debt and the loser of some twenty thousand dollars. How he solved the situation is best told in his own words :

I Kept my business to myself and maintained my credit until I had struggled pretty well through my indebtedness, living economically and wasting nothing. 37