(Letter)
"Spencer, Ind., Mar. 24, 1906,
Dear Sir:
Father and grandfather came from North Carolina in 1818, and settled one-fourth mile from where I now live. Grandfather came from Maryland to Burke County, and settled on the Catawba River. He was a minister of the Regular Baptist Church for fifty-seven years, and died at the age of eighty-four in 1854. Rev. James Chambers, a brother of grandfather, died at a ripe old age. Can get his age at the cemetery. Joel Chambers was an uncle of my father. Do not know where he settled in Indiana. I have a sister, eighty-two. Grandfather's family was large, -- five boys and three girls. My father, the oldest, was born in N.C., Dec. 8, 1798. My father's name was Zaccheus. My uncles were John, Jesse, James, and Elisha. My aunts were Biddie, Allie, and Rebecca. All are now dead. My father was killed by a falling tree in 1869.
Yours truly,
ROBERT E. CHAMBERS."
(A second letter)
My dear Sir and Brother:
I am guessing from your letter that you have traveled East. I was at the cemetery today where James Chambers was buried. He was born March 28, 1728, and died April 15, 1828. He was a Regular Baptist preacher for fifty years. James is my great-grandfather. Elijah, my grandfather was born Sept 30, 1772, and died in 1854. Rebecca, the wife of Elijah, was born May 24, 1776, and died Oct. 5, 1855. She is my grandmother. Her maiden name was Moore. I have taken the above names and dates from the tombstones. I saw my older sister since I wrote you. She says that James was born in Scotland and came to Maryland; from Maryland he went to N.C. and from there to Indiana. Elijah is my grandfather. Isaac and Asa are two of grandfather's brothers. They had a sister Rachel who married a Baptist preacher by the name of Brown. I have heard my father talk about the Chambers that was lost and found by the Indians. The Chamberses named in the history of Clay and Owen Counties, on pages 331, 537, and 541, are not of our family. My father married Isabella Blair, a Kentucky girl.
I was born in 1838, and my brother, Samuel N., in 1840. John (1825) and Elisha (1833) were sons of John.
Yours truly,
ROBERT E. CHAMBERS
The facts herein stated were a revelation. The year 1906 gave me quite a shake-up. Spier Bruce and Robert E. in Knox and Owen, strangers to one another, family historians, almost octogenarians, gave proof of a common brotherhood beyond the Revolution. A later chapter will summarize this proof.
No account has been given of the descendants of Isaac and Asa, and only a part of the descendants of Elijah, but should subsequent revision be made, perhaps these facts may be added.
FROM HISTORY
An old record states that when the town of Spencer was laid out, in 1820, Asa Chambers owned 8 lots; Elijah, 2
lots; and Zaccheus, 2 lots. Elijah Chambers, son of James, was a member of the first grand jury of
Owen County in 1819, and was president of the Board of County Commissioners in 1832. It will be noted
that Isaac bought no lots.
It is perhaps proper to state here that it appears that Elijah was not the oldest son of James. James was forty-four year of age when Elijah was born, and it was the custom of those times for families to be prolific. Then in Robert E.'s letter he says: "Among his sons were Elijah, Isaac and Asa." Robert E. did not claim to know the extent of James's family. There is scarcely a doubt that a number of his children were born back in Maryland. At least we know that before leaving Burke County, N.C. his children were all grown, and many of them married. Elijah was born as late as 1772. The Chamberses who were left behind in the journey northward, of course, belong to that large unclassified list, so dominant in Kentucky and Tennessee, and perhaps in other parts of the South.
Of the three families of Samuel, David and James, some are lost. Only Alexander of the sons of Samuel was known in Indiana. David's sons, William and David, strayed, the one to Arkansas and the other to Pennsylvania and later, perhaps to the West via the Ohio River. A part of James's descendants are unknown. The better part of life is to seek the unknown by grouping the known.
From a Bloomington item in the Indianapolis Morning Star we learn that James Chambers (1835) was killed in a runaway accident. He was doubtless of the Owen County family.
FROM A KENTUCKY HISTORY:
James Chambers moved with his family from North Carolina to Jessamine County, Kentucky, about
1804. He was called to the care of the Clover Bottom Baptist church. After two or three years,
leaving his family behind, he returned to the care of churches in North Carolina. Later, he joined his
family in Kentucky, and in 1818, they crossed the Ohio River and proceeded to their future homes in
Indiana.
As James was ninety years of age when he left Kentucky, no doubt he left behind him, in Kentucky and Tennessee, some of his progeny.
Robert E., the sixth son of Zaccheus and Isabella Blair Chambers, was born April 24, 1838, and died July 29, 1913. He was united in marriage to Elizabeth C. Summit, sunday, Oct. 1, 1865. To this union eight children were born: Zona A., Robert E.V., Malora A., Jane E., Endamila T., Minnie I., Winzor E., and Ivan. The widow and children are all alive; all are married except Ivan.
After the death of Robert E., his son Ivan kept in touch with my progress by writing me an occasional letter. In his last letter, a part of which follows, he said. "You will have to overlook my delay, for I have been serving on the petit jury." Of course, under such circumstances, I was glad to extend him just a little more time.
Our reunion was held on Sept. 21. We held our reunion at the church on ground that was once owned by grandfather. The officers elected are as follows: Ivan Chambers, president, Gosport, IN; Emmett Chambers, secretary, Spencer, IN; W.P. Sandy, treasurer, Spencer, IN.
Our reunion next year will be at the same place on the third Sunday of September.
Chambersville is on State road number 32, four miles east of Spencer, twelve miles northwest from Bloomington, and five miles south of Gosport. Chambersville was formerly a village, but it is only a name now.
IVAN CHAMBERS
A RECENT DISCOVERY
As I have previously stated, many emigrants from North Carolina and points South and East entered Tennessee,
then, after a little delay, passed through Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. A Kentucky author puts it in
this way: "The first settlers except those who came by way of the Ohio River, crawled through the Cumberland
Gap like lines of ants across the nicked rim of a honey jar. The honey lay in the Bluegrass saucer and
the river basin, lands made rich by alluvial deposits and the crumbling deposits of phosphatic limestone base,
where two crops may be grown in one year." The route of travel lay on a line from near Somerset toward
Frankfort. The first railroad was built between Danville and Frankfort in 1835. Among these early
emigrants were a few bearing the Chambers name.
It will be remembered that James Chambers and his sons Isaac, Asa, and Elijah left their home in Burke County, North Carolina via this route. From the Owen County records we learn that Elijah and his sons and Asa bought lots and became identified with the community in which they lived, but no mention is made of Isaac. Elijah was born in 1772. Isaac, being an older son, must have been born prior to 1770. The fact that the father, James, endured the journey through Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana at an advanced age, reaching Owen County at the age of ninety, and the further fact that he accompanied a younger son, Elijah, rather than his first son, Isaac, leads me to the conclusion that Isaac was hindered from making this journey through Indiana; and that he is the head of a family unknown to the relatives in Owen County. Let us see who these people are:
(A letter)
Nabbs, Ind., Nov. 12, 1924
Dear Mr. Chambers:
I visited the spot in Kentucky where the Chambers family made their first stop. There is an old graveyard there, and many tombstones were seen bearing the Chambers name, some of which were Anthony, Amasa, Thomas, and others. While there I was informed that one of the Chambers boys was killed by the Indians while he was out hunting for the cows. I was shown the exact spot where the first Baptist church stood, in that settlement. My aunt, Mrs. Mayfield, told me that our ancestors came to Kentucky from Tennessee. My grandparents came to Indiana, in 1816, from the Rolling Fork of Salt River in Nelson County.
ISAAC C. STOUT.
The following facts are selected from Gresham's Biographical and Historical Souvenir:
Captain Isaac Chambers was born in Melton County, Kentucky, May 28, 1795. (This statement is incorrect for the reason that there is no such county in Kentucky. The reference applies to Nelson County, lying between Jessamine and Louisville, Kentucky.) He was a soldier in the war of 1812-15, and fought in the battle of New Orleans. (History reports that one-fourth of the soldiers under Jackson at New Orleans were Kentucky riflemen.) After the battle, he walked back to his home in Kentucky, and raised a crop there. He entered a tract of land in Monroe Township, Jefferson Co., IN in 1815. He built his cabin, then returned to his old home in Kentucky to raise a crop. The following year he moved his family to his new home. In 1840 he was elected as a member of the Indiana State Legislature. For years he was a captain of the State Militia. He died in 1865.
James Chambers was a son of Isaac Chambers. He married Mary Baxter. To this union were born nine children, as follows: Ira B., Indiana, Nancy A., James W., John M., Mary J., Robert D., Isaac D., and George A.
Ira Chambers was born Dec. 7, 1842. He enlisted in the 10th Indiana Cavalry, and on the 14th day of Dec., 1864, he was taken prisoner at Huntsville, Alabama. For four months and fourteen days he was prisoner at Andersonville, when he escaped and found his way to the Union lines at Jacksonville, Florida, on April 29, 1865. He was married to Nancy J. Potter in 1865. There were seven children: Burdette, Charles, Mollie, Harry, Willie, Frank, and Stella. He became prematurely old, due to exposure during the Civil War. He was a member of the G.A.R.
From the above quotations I am led to the following very definite conclusions:
1. The frequent use of the name Isaac is favorable to relationship with the Owen Co. branch of the family.
2. The date of the birth of Isaac, the Indiana pioneer (1795), makes it reasonable that he was the son of the elder Isaac, who was then a man about fifty-five years of age, or at least closely related to him.
3. The names Anthony, Amasa, and Thomas are Bible names. James, the father of Elijah and Asa, was a Baptist preacher for more than fifty years, and Bible names continue in Elijah's progeny.
4. The Owen County branch have been unable to account for the descendants of Isaac, and perhaps of others of this family.
For these reasons I am convinced that these families are thus closely related. Should Ivan Chambers, Rural Route No. 3, Gosport, IN, who has been such an inspiration to me in the preparation of this work.
Should anyone desire to get closer to this new family, I would suggest that he correspond with one of the following descendants of Isaac Chambers:
1. Mrs. Mary J. Elliott, Dupont, IN
2. Roy Chambers, Dupont, IN
3. William H. Stout, Lyceum manager, Indianapolis, IN
Note: From Mrs. Elliott I learn that the sons of Anthony were John, Amimihaz, Barrett, and Jephtha. The greater part of this big family never crossed the Ohio, but the descendants of Isaac are, most of them, here.
Willard Chambers of the firm of Chambers-Wilson Motor Car Co., Bryan, Texas, gives a very clear account of his ancestors. Thomas Chambers lived on Chambers Creek in eastern Tennessee in the early part of the century and died in 1868, leaving four sons; Anthony, James, Jack, and William. William, the great-grandfather, moved to Newton Co., Mississippi. His sons were Joseph, Frank, Columbus, and James. His direct ancestry then moved to Biloxi, then to Mobile, and from there to Texas. Williard has an uncle on Red River, Texas; his father is prominent in the Chamber of Commerce at Cameron, Texas.
The names Anthony and Thomas seem to connect this family with the descendants of James, of the Owen County branch. Older sons of James lived in eastern Tennessee.