Elihu Elnathan Chandler

CHANDLER, DOBSON, MATHIS

Posted By: Barb Chandler (email)
Date: 1/23/2012 at 17:45:15

"Died on the 24th in Baltimore township, Henry county, Elihu Chandler aged 80 years.

Mr. Chandler was born in the state of Maine Jan. 27 1795. In 1830 he came west to the State of Ohio, and from thence the next year to Henderson county, Illinois. The Blackhawk War was raging so Elihu helped build and gaurd the forts in the county.

In 1883 Mr. Chandler crossed the Mississippi river at a point where there was a little white settlement of two or three cabins, and known in that early day as "Pinhook." This was the very beginning of your city, Burlington. And here Mr. Chandler worked six weeks at the honest business of splitting rails and chopping wood for Dr. Ross, the first white physician who practiced medicine in Burlington.

In the fall Mr. Chandler went back to Illinois, but in February recrossed the river, and with Enoch, Cyrus, William Dickens and Noble Housely, came west some fifteen miles and started the first settlement made in Danville, and perhaps in Augusta Township. In June 1835 he was married to Mrs. Jemima Dobson who, the October previous came with her brother, Mr. William Mathis, and his family from Kentucky and who with her four little children were living at the time of their marriage in the third cabin (or rather the second cabin as Cyrus' cabin was literally a rail pen) built by a white man in the township. There Mr. Chandler lived for nearly four years, and then moved to what is now Baltimore Township, Henry County. In this neighborhood he lived over 46 years greatly respected and beloved by his neighbors and all who knew him. And here his widow over fourscore years of age survives him.

Mr. Chandler was a sincere Christian and was the third person baptized into the fellowship of what is now the Danville Baptist church. That church being organized October 20, 1834.

The funeral of this early settler took place at the residence of his widow and the services were conducted by Rev. S. H. Mitchell, his pastor, and others. A very large concourse led by six old settlers on horseback followed his remains to the graveyard on Mr. Runner's farm, where the remains of Nancy Duke, the first white person who died in this part of Des Moines County." Source: Daily Gazette Henry County, Iowa Sept. 30 1884

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