THE WAUPACA COUNTY POST

February 13, 1992

 

WHEN THEN WAS NOW

By Wayne A. Guyant

 

            This story will include some of the highlights in the lives of the Chandler families who settled in the Chandler-Vaughn District midway between what is now Waupaca and Weyauwega, in 1849.

            Augustus Chandler was born August 12, 1782, at Hanover Centre, Grafton County, New Hampshire.  He was married there on November 22, 1804, to Polly S. Slade.  Augustus Chandler died in Waupaca April 17, 1871, and is buried in the family lot in the Waupaca Lakeside Cemetery.  His wife, the former Polly S. Slade, was born November 26, 1784, in New Hampshire, and died in Waupaca, March 19, 1864.  She is also buried in the family lot.

            Augustus and Polly Chandler were the parents of 10 children, all born in Grafton County, NH; they were:  John Wilkes, Samuel Slade, Augusta, Sarah Slade, William Henry (who died in infancy), William Henry, Augustus Hill, Harriet Jane, Martha Hill and Thomas Baldwin.

            The Chandlers embarked on a new life in the mid-1840s.  Augustus Chandler decided to take his family to what was then the Western frontier, so they left their home in Hanover Centre, NH, and headed for Wisconsin.  Two members of the family stayed behind.  William Henry, who died in infancy, and Harriet Jane Chandler, who chose teaching as a profession.  She graduated from the New Hampton Seminary in 1843, and in the fall of that same year, accepted a teaching position in Barryton, AL.

            In September of 1846, the Chandler clan had settled in Waterford (Racine County) except for Augustus Hill Chandler and family, who went on to Jo Davis County, IL.  This was two years before Wisconsin became a state.

            The Augustus and Polly Slade Chandler family including John Wilkes Chandler, their eldest son, John W. Chandler, his wife, Phebe Bridgman Chandler, with their two daughters Mary M. and Harriet A., all left their homes in Waterford to make a new start again in the unsettled wilderness in the Indian Lands farther to the north in central Wisconsin.

            John Wilkes Chandler had been born at Hanover, NH, in 1808, and was married there to Miss Phebe Bridgman, and they had three children born there also:  Mary Bridgman and Harriet Augusta.  They had a son, John Wilkes Jr., who died February 22, 1842.  He was about two and one-half years old.  He was buried in New Hampshire.  Phebe Bridgman was born March 2, 1806.  John W. Chandler became a lieutenant colonel in the militia in New Hampshire before moving to Wisconsin.

            Early in the spring of 1849, after some weeks of travel, this group of the Chandler family arrived on the south bank of the Waupaca River, in Section 1, Township of Lind, Waupaca County.  Here they lived with the Simon C. Dow family in a 14 by 16 foot shanty.

            Many of us may be wondering just what mode of transportation these pioneers had when they embarked into the unbroken wilderness.  It is not known how the Chandler families traveled from their home in New Hampshire, to Racine County, or from Racine County to Algoma at the mouth of the Fox River.  At that time Algoma was located on the south side of the Fox, and Oshkosh was on the north side.

            But Mrs. John Wilkes Chandler did record how they traveled to the Town of Lind from Algoma.  They started by sailboat and went up the Fox River to Winneconne, and into the Wolf River, and on up to Gills Landing.  Here they found a man with a single ox and a drag (stoneboat) for sale.  This was the conveyance on which grandmother Polly Slade Chandler rode on from Gills Landings, to their destination in the new land.

            In a letter written by Phebe Chandler to Mrs. Augustus Hill (Susan) Chandler postmarked July 10, 1849, urging them to leave Jo Davis County and come to this new land, she described their new home with the Dows:  “Our new shanty is only 14 by 16, made of boards and no partitions.  Mrs. Dow and mother Chandler have beds set up on one side; the rest of us has to bundle in well.  How we do this is, there are curtains before the beds, then I hung a curtain across the other way, so we are made into four bedrooms.  We have not been by ourselves but a few nights since we have been here, 14 sometimes, and as thick as three in a bed, and we all look tether way.”

            They had only one stove for both families.  Phebe Bridgman Chandler, wife of John Wilkes Chandler, was struck down in the prime of her life, on August 14, 1853, before her hopes and dreams had a chance to materialize.  She was buried on their property on the south bank of the Waupaca River.  Hers is one of the oldest markers in Waupaca County.  In 1857 Col. John W. Chandler left the Iola and Waupaca areas and returned to Waterford in Racine County.  He remarried to Mrs. Catherine M. Tyler.  He died there of consumption on July 21, 1862, aged 54 years, and was buried in the Oakwood cemetery there, so many miles from the small lonely burial place of his first wife, Phebe.

            It was on June 1, 1862, that the government through an act of Congress first opened up the Indian Lands for sale to the white man.  Fremont was the main crossing point on the Wolf River.  The Big Crossing as it was called, started at midnight June 1, 1852, when a large wave of whites crossed the Wolf, in hopes of laying out a claim.  All early settlers that lived in the Indian Lands west of the Wolf River and east of the Wisconsin River prior to June 1, 1852, were squatters, or sometimes called waiters, but they preferred to be called preemptors.

            In March of 1850 the Samuel Slade Chandler Sr. family left their home in Racine County and joined the Chandler clan that had settled in the Chandler district between Weyauwega and Waupaca Falls.

            Samuel Slade Chandler Sr. was born August 11, 1809, at Hanover Center, NH, and was married there to Sarah Gould Colcord, who was born January 12, 1815 at Kingston, NH.  She died in Iola February 20, 1872, and is buried in the Riverside Cemetery there.

            Samuel S. and Sarah Chandler had the following children:  Daniel Augustus, Mary Colcord, Sarah Frances, William Henry H., Samuel Slade Jr., Harriet Jane and Martha Foss.  The Samuel S. Chandler family was in Iola by 1854, and was one of the very first families to be living there.  Samuel S. and his brother, Col. John W. Chandler, built a saw mill in Iola, if not the first one.  Mr. Chandler hired the first school teacher in Iola, paying all of her wages, except for $7.50, and he boarded her besides for the first three months.

            Samuel S. Chandler Sr. was a pioneer in the days when clearing the forests and converting the timber into lumber was king.

            Mr. Chandler was 63 years old when his wife, Sarah, died. After her death he moved to Waupaca to live with his son, Samuel S. Jr.  Here he was married for a second time, this time to Mrs. Harriet Ingalls, on April 16, 1873.  He died on March 22, 1899, and Harriet died February 2, 1910.  Both are buried in Waupaca Lakeside Cemetery.

            Remember, when the Chandler families left their home in New Hampshire, and settled at Waterford, Racine County, Augustus Hill Chandler and his wife, Susan Woodward Chandler, continued on to Jo Davis County, IL, to live.  There was a letter, dated July 10, 1849, that Phebe Bridgman Chandler, Mrs. John W. Chandler, wrote to Susan, Mrs. Augustus H. Chandler, in Jo Davis County, IL., urging them to hurry and come to this new land before all of the claims were taken up.

            Mr. Chandler, his wife, Susan, and children responded to her plea, and left their home in Jo Davis County, and arrived upon the scene in the Chandler settlement in the spring of 1850, on a claim of government land.  This property now includes much of the Waupaca Municipal Airport.

            It was here, in Section 35, Town of Waupaca, that they built their first home, and it was in this home that the first school classes were held, taught by Mrs. Susan Chandler.  This made her the first teacher to teach in the first school in Waupaca County.

            School started on June 5, 1851, because school classes had to be started in June, so as to complete a three-month term to draw state money.  Three weeks later a new one-room schoolhouse was built and made serviceable and classes resumed in the new schoolhouse.  There were about 20 pupils ranging in ages from 5 to 17, all coming from the surrounding area within a radius of one and one-half miles.

            Augustus Hill Chandler was born March 31, 1819, at Hanover Center, NH.  He married Susan Woodward there on September 22, 1842.  She was born August 7, 1823, also in Hanover Center.  She died January 22, 1899, in Chicago, IL, and Augustus H. died January 15, 1893.  Both were laid to rest in the Waupaca Lakeside Cemetery.  They were the parents of three children:  William Augustus, who died September 12, 1865, aged 13 years; Jessie Estelle, who died March 12, 1865, aged six years, and are both buried in the Waupaca cemetery, and a third child, Fremont Elmer, was born in the Town of Lind in 1861.

            Fremont C. Chandler graduated from Waupaca High School in 1876, and continued his education at the University of Wisconsin.  He finished his bachelor of science course in 1886.  He attended the Rush Medical College in Chicago, graduating in 1893, going from there to Augustana Hospital where he served his internship under the famed Dr. Ochsner.

            Dr. Chandler practiced medicine in Chicago until 1915, when he returned to Waupaca to assume his practice until his death in 1931.

            In 1889 Dr. Fremont E. Chandler was married to Mary Rebecca Saxe of Whitewater, WI.  They became the parents of eight children, two of whom died young.

            Dr. Arthur H. Chandler, son of Dr. Fremont E. Chandler, practiced dentistry in Waupaca from 1918 until his death in 1968.

            Samuel Slade Chandler Jr., son of Samuel Slade Sr. and wife, Sarah, was born in New Hampshire on August 8, 1842.  He served nearly three years with Co. G, 21^st Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, in the Civil War, with quite a distinguished record.  He married Ella E. McKenzie of Iola in 1868, and they had two sons, Arthur M. and Clarence C.

            Ella E. Chandler died August 5, 1929 and 19 days later he husband Samuel S. Chandler Jr. passed away.  Both are buried in Waupaca.  Arthur M., their eldest son, was born July 18, 1870, and died October 2, 1898, of typhoid fever, aged 28 years.  He had graduated from the Waupaca High School with the class of 1888.  After graduating he was assistant postmaster until January 1893, when he was appointed deputy register of deeds by his father.  He held this position until January 1897, when he accepted a position with eh March-Davis Cycle Company of Chicago.  He held state records in bicycle racing for the one-quarter, the one-half and the one mile.

            Going back to Harriet Jane Chandler, who was a daughter of Augustus and Polly Chandler, and had not come to Wisconsin in 1846 with the others of the family:  She had met Thomas S. Parker while attending school at Deerfield, MA, and married him in 1846.  When the Civil War broke out he joined the southern army.  In 1864 they arrived in Iola, and resided there until her death on May 15, 1901.  Thomas S. Parker died in the Riverside Cemetery there.  He was one of only a very few Confederate soldiers buried this far north in Wisconsin.