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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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                  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