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James M. Chandler, merchant at Evansville, Ark., is the son of Jacob and
Elizabeth (Reeder) Chandler. The father was born in Kentucky in 1793, and
when a child moved with his parents to Tennessee, where he married Miss
Reeder. About 1825 he and his family moved west of the Mississippi River,
locating in the vicinity of Evansville, where the father died in 1876. He
was a farmer all his life, a Democrat in politics, and for many years was
justice of the peace. The mother died when quite young (1836), and was but
thirty-six years of age. Both were members of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South. Their family consisted of eight children, six now (1889)
living. The youngest son, and the subject of this sketch, was reared a
farmer boy, and received his education in the subscription school, also at
Cane Hill College. At the age of eighteen he began teaching in the Cherokee
Nation at $33 1/8 per month, but thinking that he could not rise in the
profession he hired as clerk in a store for $12 per month. After working for
his employer until almost as much was due him as the stock was worth, he and
a partner, N.B. Dunhurg, took the stock in 1853 and began merchandising at
Dutch Mills. Soon after he moved to Wilsonville, one and a half miles north
of Evansville, and here carried on farming in connection with merchandising.
In 1856 he married Miss Margaret L. Morrow, daughter of Rev. George Morrow,
and to them was born one son, William M. Mrs. Chandler died in 1861, and
four years later Mr. Chandler married Miss Helen M., daughter of Rev. Young
Ewing. This union resulted in the birth of five children: Charles H., Addie
D., Lulu E., Lillie and James E. In 1862 Mr. Chandler enlisted in the
Confederate army, and served in the commissary department most of the time
until the close of the war. In 1867 he opened a store in Evansville, and has
operated the same ever since. He was also postmaster at Evansville for five
years, is a Democrat in politics, and he and wife are members of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He owns 100 acres of land, a good store,
and has made it all by his own industry.
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History of Washington (County), Arkansas, Chicago: The Goodspeed Publishing
Co., 1889 page 924.
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