xt7s7h1dk58s https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7s7h1dk58s/data/mets.xml Parish, John Carl, 1881-1939. 1909 books b92-30-26572914 English State Historical Society of Iowa, : Iowa City, Ia. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Chambers, John, 1780-1852. Iowa History. John Chambers / by John Carl Parish. text John Chambers / by John Carl Parish. 1909 2002 true xt7s7h1dk58s section xt7s7h1dk58s IOWA BIOGRAPHICAL SERIES EDITED BY BENJAMIN F. SHAMBAUGTH This page in the original text is blank. JOHN CHAMBERS R, Nz i AW 79 2 0 JOHN CHAMBERS, from an oil portrait IOWA BIOGRAPHICAL ED)ITEI) BY BENJAMIN F. SHAMBAUGII JOHN CHAMBERS B Y JOHN CARL PARISH TiLE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF IOWA IOWA CITY IOWA 1909 MSERIES This page in the original text is blank. EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION IN the biographies of Robert Lucas and John Chambers, as written for the IOWA BIOGRAPHICAL SERIES by Dr. Parish, may be found the outlines of the general history of the Territory of Iowa, since the administra- tions of these two Governors span all but one year of the Territorial period. Moreover, the careers of Lucas and Cham- bers - the one born in Virginia and expe- rienced in Ohio, the other born in New Jer- sey and experienced in Kentucky - suggest and in a measure illustrate the intermingling of northern and southern peoples and insti- tutions in the early history of Iowa. But the larger interest in these biogra- phies will be discovered in the view which they reveal of that wonderful Westward Movement which peopled the Mississippi Valley and laid the foundations of an em- pire of American Pioneers. BENJ. F. SHAMBAIJGH OFFICE OF THE SUPEINTENDENT AND EDITOR THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF IOWA IOWA CITY This page in the original text is blank. 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 Revolu- tionary AW ar 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 devel- opment 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 expe- rience of the long preceding period; and in them came the opportunity offered by a posi- tion of greater influence. The writing of the present volume was under- taken upon the suggestion of Dr. Benj. F. Shambaugh, Superintendent of The State His- 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 pios- session 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 biogra- phy. Further material was collected in Iowa, in various towns of Kentucky, and in Wash- ington, D. C. The author desires to make the most g ate- ful acknowledgments to Mr. John Chambers of Louisville, Kentucky, a grandson of the Gov- ernor, to his mother Mrs. Henry Chambers, and to Mr. Harry Brent Mackoy of Covington, Kentucky, a great grandson of Governor Cham- bers, who have not only made accessible valu- able manuscript sources but have done all in their power to give assistance and encourage- ment to the work. Acknowledgements are due to Colonel Remben T. Durrett of Louisville, Kentucky, for unre- stricted access to his large private library which contains files of newspapers and rare books x AUTHOR'S PREFACE 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. Han- nah Chambers Forman of Chicago, Mrs. H. H. Woodall of Covington, Kentucky, Mr. Throck- morton 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 X1 This page in the original text is blank. CONTENTS I. FROM IRELAND TO KENTUCKY.... . . 1 II. EARLY LIFE....... . . .. ... . . 12 III. A KENTUCKY LAWYER .... . . . . . 18 IV. THE WAR OF 1812... ......... 28 V. A DECADE OF RELIEF LAWS.... . . . 38 VI. THE DESHA TRIAL ... ......... 48 VII. LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS...... . .. . 65 VIII. CONGRESSMAN FROM KENTUCKY ... . . 79 IX. THE LOG CABIN CAMPAIGN ..... . . 94 X. WITH HARRISON IN THE WHITE HOUSE 106 XI. BEYOND THE MISSISSIPPI..... .. . 115 XII. GOVERNOR OF THE TERRITORY OF IOWA 127 XIII. STATE GOVERNMENT AND BOUNDARIES . 143 XIV. INDIAN AFFAIRS.... .. . .. .. . . 162 XV. THE YEARS OF TWILIGHT .... .. . . 190 NOTES AND REFERENCES...... . . . 203 INDEX .265 This page in the original text is blank. PLATES JOHN CHAMBERS, from an oil portrait . . frontispiece JOHN CHAMBERS, from an ivory miniature opposite 26 HANNAH TAYLOR CHAMBERS, from an ivory miniature.. .... opposite 26 This page in the original text is blank. I FROM IRELAND TO KENTUCKY THE lines upon which is threaded the ancestry of our people run westward. They come from the far side of the Atlantic and cross to our eastern seaboard. A few going no further wind their succession of generations about a group of New England villages or find their way clear and distinct down through the families of the Old Dominion. But most of these lines now reach out beyond the mountains. Sometimes from their inland stretching they waver back again to the coast, but more often they follow mountain gap and westering river until they have made their way to the Mississippi Valley, peopled the great plains, and reached the utter- most confines of the land. Along these wavering lines run the records of battle and bloodshed, flood and famine, suffering and sickness, peace and prosperity. Crossing and recrossing, min- gling and intermingling, they interlace the con- tinent; and their aggregate is the story of the American Nation. 1, 1 9 JOHN CHAMBERS The line of paternal ancestry of John Cham- bers, second Governor of the Territory of Iowa, runs back through four generations to the Prov- ince of Ulster, in Ireland. Here his great grandfather lived; and it is a family tradition that his forbears of the preceding century had crossed over from Scotland where they belonged to the Highland clan of Cameron and bore the clan name.' In the county of Antrim, in this Irish Province of Ulster, there was born in the year 1716 James Chambers, the third son of Rowland and Elizabeth Chambers and the grandfather of John Chambers.2 About four years later Rowland Chambers with his wife and children bade farewell to Ireland and, crossing the Atlantic, came at last to the rugged valley of the Susquehanna in the colony of Pennsylvania. Some miles below Harrisburg he bought a farm of about four hundred acres, located on the eastern bank of the Susquehanna River and north of Conewago Creek.3 A hint of his occupation is giver by the fact that the place was known as Chambers' Ferry. The remainder of his days were spent in this locality; and here, in what is now Dau- phin County, his son James, whom lie had brought with him from Ireland at the age of four years, grew to manhood. It was some- FROM IRELAND TO KENTUCKY where near the year 1738 that James Chambers married an Irish girl named Sarah Lee, whom her grandson describes as "'a woman of strong and cultivated mind and imperious tem- per " 4 The children of James and Sarah Chambers were seven in number; and among them, born about 1744, was Rowland, father of Governor John Chambers.5 Now it happened that Row- land's mother had a sister, Betty Lee, who had married one Joseph Forman and was living in New York. And so to that busy port, in his young manhood, Rowland Chambers was sent to become a clerk in his "Uncle Josey's" mer- cantile establishment. Thus the line ran back for a time to the coast. After a few years Joseph Forman died; but Rowland remained in the city and became con- nected with business that required him to make a number of voyages to European ports. It was perhaps not far from the year 1768 that he mar- ried Phoebe Mullican, an orphan girl living on Long Island. Not long before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War he left New York and formed a partnership with an Englishman, John Martin by name, who owned a farm and mills on the Raritan River in Somerset County, New Jersey. The place was known at the time as 3 JOHN CHAMBERS Bromley Bridge. Besides the mills they opened a large retail store and began a prosperous business in the products of the country. But the prosperity was short lived; the ap- proach of hostilities between the colonies and the mother country brought calamitous :results. One day there came a message to Rowland Chambers from his partner asking him to come to New York City with all the money he could collect. The unsuspecting Chambers complied. and Martin, after calmly receiving the funds, informed him that he was hiding from the American authorities and that there was; in the harbor at that moment a boat ready to sail with him for England. In vain did Chambers urge an adjustment of their business affairs. The thing that appealed to Mr. John Martin was the necessity of getting out of the country, and he would hear to no delay. He promised, however, to send from England full evidence of the ownership of Chambers to the entire prop- erty in New Jersey. He sailed away and soon afterward died in England, without havting re- deemed his promise. Chambers settled up the affairs of the firm, paid all the debts, a-ad then discontinued the store. The mills he still kept in operation.6 Actual warfare had now commenced. The 4 FROM IRELAND TO KENTUCKY ,5 Continental Congress had drawn up and signed the Declaration of Independence, and through- out the little strip of colonies men were laying aside the plough or closing their business houses and taking up arms. Rowland Chambers, ar- dent in his support of the cause of the Ameri- can colonies, left his mills and joined the Revo- lutionary Army, finding service in the New Jersey militia.7 One noonday lightning struck the mills at Bromley Bridge, and when night shut down there were left only blackened embers. Hence- forth the name Bromley Bridge gradually Glassed away and the place came to be known as the Burnt Mills. Disasters now did not come singly. On the first tour of army duty the un- accustomed exposure so crippled Rowland Chambers with rheumatism that he was finally obliged to leave the service after he had for some time persisted in his duties, being lifted to and from his saddle. His heart was, however, no less with the cause than before; and he found new channels for the exercise of his patriotism. He now gave his time to the securing of supplies. The prod- ucts of his farm went to support the starving army and his means helped to clothe it. And, by reason of his generosity, each year that JOHN CHAMBERS brought the Revolution nearer to a close saw further depletion of the Chambers fortune. In the year 1780, on the sixth of October, John Chambers, the fourth son of Rowland, was born. In the days of his infancy the long strug- gle with England ended and peace came upon the land. But the evils of war often show them- selves most clearly in the aftermath. The men who had for months and years followed the for- tunes of battle returned, restless and imsettled in habits, to neglected farms and disorganized business affairs; and the process of rebuilding was slow and difficult. In the years of his connection with the army and his subsequent association with army offi- cers Rowland Chambers fell into ways of intem- perance that boded ill for the recovery of his former circumstances. His vigorous mind nat- urally drew him into the affairs connected with the organization of government; and meanwhile matters at home were neglected and almost abandoned. Poverty and ruin came apace. The final act in the dissolution of the family fortune came when the heirs of John Martin crossed over from England and claimed the land upon which Rowland Chambers and his family lived. In this time of dire discouragement there came, out of the West, Rowland's oldest son 6 FROM IRELAND TO KENTUCKY William. Years before, William had crossed the mountains and made his way into the land of Kentucky; and his glowing account of the frontier now brought hope to the despairing family. It was a voice "behind the ranges" that had been calling since the time of Boone - a call that had in it a warning of danger that was a challenge to the hardy, that told of much to risk and much to gain. It was a call that passed by the weakling and drew to the Licking Valley men long of limb and stout of heart. Years before the voice had whispered to the struggling men in the mountains of wes- tern Virginia; and shouldering their rifles the gaunt mountaineers strode down into the val- ley that offered them a more plentiful living. Again it called and restless spirits from nearer the shore line-men whose means had van- ished with the War - packed their few posses- sions and traversed the mountain passes into the new West. So the call came to Rowland Chambers, and it found a willing response. He sold the stock and remaining property, and packed beds, fur- niture, clothing, and provisions into two large Jersey wagons. They did not make the journey alone. The family of Robert Davis - who had married Phoebe, the oldest daughter of Row- 7 JOHN CHAMBERS land Chambers - and the family of Peter Davis, his brother, accompanied them - each with a stout wagon and team of horses.8 The little party left New Jersey in the sum- mer of 1794 and began the slow and laborious journey across the mountains of Pennsylvania. Over the mountains and along streams, by rocky gorges and scarcely broken roads they made their way -the men and boys walking the entire distance, while the women a-ad chil- dren rode in the wagons. Rowland himself went by way of New York City, and it was many days before he overtook the party in the Monon- gahela country. For several weeks they were delayed at the Monongahela River wailing for boats; and here they found themselves in the midst of the Whiskey Insurrection whi ch was at its height in western Pennsylvania in the late summer of that year. At length they secured boats and embarked. They were weeks upon the water, for the river trip was in those days a laborious passage. It was particularly so in time of low water when the shifting river channel and the numerous submerged rocks and sunken trees mad] it not only difficult but dangerous. From the Monon- gahela they entered the Ohio at Pil;tsburg. Down its waters the boats carried the emi- 8 FROMI IRELAND TO KENTUCKY grants, past Wheeling, past the town of Mari- etta at the mouth of the Muskingum, and past the Scioto where the town of Portsmouth had not yet sprung into existence. At length they reached a place where on the southern side a little creek emptied its waters from the lime-rock hills above into the curve of the great river. Here was the port of Limestone - fa- mous among all those who knew the West as the point of entrance into Kentucky for Ohio River emigrants.9 To-day the town of Maysville, the county seat of Mason County, Kentucky, stretches along the shore for three miles and fills the lower slopes back to where the wooded lime hills rise abruptly. But the town of Maysville does not to-day occupy a position so important with respect to its surroundings as did the landing place of Limestone in the days of 1794. On the opposite shore, the hills of Ohio parted in a gap where a few years later the famous road of Ebenezer Zane from Wheeling across Ohio broke through to join at Limestone the trail into the interior of Kentucky.10 It was not mankind that first traced that pathway south from the Ohio River. In the bygone days when the buffaloes roamed the prairies east of the Mississippi River they 9 JOHN CHAMBERS sought out and wore deep into the soil a track that wound up the hill from the river andI across into the heart of the rich blue-grass pasturage. And man, coming after, saw the winding rib- bon trail and made it his own. Thus began the old pioneer road by which thousands who de- scended the Ohio climbed the hills back of Limestone and reached the midst of the far famed land of Kentucky. Passing along this road-later so well known as the Maysville Turnpike - the men who had come by the water route reached Lexington and there met those other hardy souls who had struggled through the Cumberland Gap and toiled along Boone's Wilderness Road north- ward into the land of promise."1 But almost at the beginning of the road from the river was a town that played no small part in the early history of Kentucky. When the traveler who landed at Limestone reached the uplands back of the town he soon found himself in the vil- lage of Washington. It was into this vicinity that Simon Kenton came, away back in the year before thE Decla- ration of Independence was signed, and raised a crop of corn and built a cabin about a mile from the present site of the town.12 :[n 1785 the town was laid out, and in the year following 10 FROM IRELAND TO KENTUCKY 11 it was organized by the legislature of Vir- ginia.13 If Limestone be styled the northeast gateway into Kentucky, it may perhaps be said that the keepers of the gate dwelt in the village upon the hill. It was the county seat of Mason County (which in early days reached from the Licking River to the Big Sandy) and into its court rooms there gathered a coterie of lawyers whose fame was known throughout Kentucky. Business houses sprang up and it became a prominent place of trade for the population of a large surrounding territory. II EARLY LIFE LATE in the month of October, 1794, Rowland Chambers and his family disembarked at Lime- stone 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 run- ning 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 Wash- ington came into view. Strung along both sides of the road were more than a hundred houses, sheltering a; sturdy and active pioneer com- 12 EARLY LIFE 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 vil- lage 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. Rowland Chambers settled at once in Wash- ington. 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 "cor- rupted 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 opportu- nity 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 emplover 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. 13 JOHN CHAMBERS In the following spring the older brother Wil- liam, 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 Transyl- vania Seminary in Lexington. In March, 1795, the boy entered, and attended the school until the summer vacation in July. At this time it difficulty existed between the President of that institution (Mr. Harry Toulman) and the Trus- tees. 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 14 EARLY LIFE 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 morn- ing fires and bring water for the days consumption.16 It was not long, however, until Rowland Chambers and his wife removed from Wash- ington to Augusta, where their daughter, Mrs. Robert Davis, was now living. But John re- mained 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, de- siring 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 at- tained his majority was proposed which, says 15 JOHN CHAMBERS (CIambers, "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, th3 indenture would not, and I never heard of the indenture afterward' 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 andi it seems to have elicited his most diligent ef- forts. During the hours unoccupied in recorc- ing cases and performing other duties, he ap- plied 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 be- fore 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 River, leaving Chambers to carry on the office and receive the fees. Taylor still nomi- nally 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 amount- ing to somewhat less than four hundred dollars. 16 EARLY LIFE1 Out of this suim 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.' Thus ended his score of years of apprentice- ship; and with the century he began his career as a lawyer. 2 17 III A KENTUCKY LAWYER JOHN CHAMBERS came early into association with the profession of law. He was only seven- teen when he entered the office of Francis Tay- lor and helped record the trials before one of the busiest district courts in Kentucky; and he had not yet attained his majority when he canoe 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."2 During the session of 1801-1802 the legisla- ture of Kentucky abolished the District and Quarter Session Courts and established a sys- tem of Circuit Courts in their stead. The clerk- ship of this new court was an office of some re- muneration, 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 18 A KENTUCKY LAWYER 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 clerk- ship he had rendered quid pro quo and that jus- tice did not require that he refuse to be a can- date for any office for which Francis Taylor had aspirations. There were, however, further complications in the matter. During the pre- ceding 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 Cham- bers thus describes the outcome of this inter- esting situation: 19 20 JOHN CHAMBERS 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, ani altho she knew her brother, being an only son, hal great influence with her father, she did not fear i;. She had been raised in his bosom from her very ir - fancy, without a mother, and she knew he had confi- dence in her judgment and prudence and would nct sacrifice her happiness under any influence that coull be brought to bear upon him. Mr. Taylor was electel Clerk and I soon after informed him of my engage- ment 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 hiin on the subject, the reply was very stern and to tle effect that he would immediately send his sister honre 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 jour- ney of 500 miles on horseback (then the only means of travel), he answered that she could as well mal:e the journey then as when she came to Kenty I re- minded 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 tell- ing him that in that case I should accompany her, lie A KENTUCKY LAWYER 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 know [n], 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] lie did not know and could not judge of, and espe- cially one whom her brother disapproved of. To Mr. Taylor he expressed his regret at what had taken p)lace, but said he had raised that daughter without a mother and she had inspired him not only with the llost unbounded affection, but with great confidence in her judgment and prudence, and to her he was willing tinder all circumstances to commit her fate in the matter of her marriage, and that his. Mr. Tav- bor's opposition to her marriage he hoped would at 0on1e cease.24 On June 16, 1808, they were married at Mr. Taylor's house - Chambers himself describing it as "a melancholy scene" whereat "one young nian 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 21 JOHN CHAMBERS 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. Thf only records which give any clue to the amount of business enjoyed by individual members of the Mason County bar are two manuscript vol.. umes entitled Record of' Personal Actions and covering the years 1803, 1804, and 1805.20 An examination of this official record shows that iii the October ternri of 1803 somewhere near sev- enty-five cases came up before the Circuit Court of Mason County. In about thirty of these John Chambers was the counsel for the plain- tiff.27 In the September term of the following year, out of a total of fifty-three cases Cham- bers 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. Mar- shall, and others divided the remaining elevens among them.29 The records give no indication of the coun