Benjamin B. Chandler was a “forwarding and commission” merchant in the earliest days of Chattanooga. He was a Union man at the time of the Civil War and was among those who did not return to his adopted town.
Ben Chandler was born in 1813 on a fine plantation on Boyds Creek in Sevier County. His grandfather, Timothy Chandler, had gone from the James River in Virginia by way of Wilkes County, N.C., to Boyds Creek in 1791. Timothy and four of his brothers had served in the Revolutionary War. His son, John, was born in 1786 and was 5 years old when the family arrived in the future Tennessee. At a young age, he began acquiring land along Boyds Creek 10 acres at a time at a dollar an acre. He eventually accumulated 4,600 acres and built a fine brick home. He had a number of slaves who tended the farm and orchard and operated a tannery and distillery.
Other children, in addition to Ben, were Jane, Barclay McGee, Timothy and William. Jane married Spencer Clack Rogers. Barclay married Adella Calpurnia Huffaker, daughter of Wesley and Rhoda Rogers Huffaker. They lived in the old Spencer Clack log cabin on the Little Pigeon River across from Sevierville. It was given to them as a wedding present by John Chandler. William married Mary Smith, but he died in 1852 when he was 30 after the couple had two sons and two daughters. His widow afterwards
married Timothy, her late husband's brother, and they lived in the manor house at Boyds Creek.
Ben and the other sons would join their father in taking their wheat, corn, tanned hides, corn liquor and other products down the French Broad and Tennessee rivers. In his travels, Ben Chandler made the acquaintance of Col. James A. Whiteside and decided to join him in Chattanooga, which only recently was just a small river depot known as Ross's Landing. He had visited that landing as early as 1833 when it was still Indian territory.
Chandler bought several lots on Chestnut Street in 1840, and he afterwards acquired extensive lands elsewhere in the county, including Lookout Mountain. He bought 569 acres from Joseph G. Smith in 1843 and in 1850 acquired 240 acres from Henry Timmons and 160 acres from A.H. Johnson.
Chandler was joined in Chattanooga by his sister, Jane, and her husband, Spencer Clack Rogers. The Rogers couple also invested in Lookout Mountain land. Jane Chandler Rogers died in 1855 and was buried on Lookout Mountain. When the body was brought up in 1871 for removal to Citizens Cemetery, the casket was so heavy that workers opened it. It was found the body had petrified. Chandler and Rogers were among the investors in the first water company established in Chattanooga.
A widow, Mrs. Ann Newell, came from New England as a teacher and was situated in the Whiteside mansion at the side of Cameron Hill. Ben Chandler met her daughter, Catherine, and they were married at the Whiteside home by the Rev. Edward Dyer on Nov. 28, 1844. He was 31 and his bride was 16. Also marrying a daughter of Mrs. Newell was John C. Burch, who became secretary of the U.S. Senate.
The Chandlers lived near the Whitesides at the foot of Cameron Hill just south of Sixth
Street. When Col. Whiteside moved temporarily to Nashville to take an active hand in management of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, the Chandlers moved to the brick Whiteside mansion on Poplar Street. Their boarders included the artist James Cameron and his wife, Emma. The Chandlers and Camerons became intimate friends, and the Chandlers named their youngest daughter Emma. The other Chandler children were Blanche, Ida, John Newell, Charles B. and Benjamin Jr.
Ben Chandler was termed “a very peculiar man, modest, quiet, and very successful.” He was an “old line Whig.” When Democrat Andrew Johnson ran for the legislature, handler put down a wager that he would be unsuccessful. The future president did lose and Chandler was given a spy glass to settle the bet. Yet the loser got his revenge. He had the name Andrew Johnson set into the instrument so that “where any unsuspecting Whig who took a sniff thereof must needs poke the end of his nose against its most infelicitous and unsympathetic extremity - that is the name of Democrat Andrew Johnson.”
Chandler was a river trader and also a dry goods merchant. He would buy goods in the East and transport them by flatboat and by wagon trains pulled by teams of four and six mules. He was a hearty advocate of the railroad, though its coming meant competition for his river and wagon trade. He adapted by dealing in shipments of cotton and other goods by the new transportation means. Chandler wrote letters to the newspaper urging the completion of a rail line to Cincinnati, and that finally came to pass. Chandler and his neighbor, Sam McKamy, had their offices and warehouses at the corner of Fourth and Market. Later they opened a pork packing establishment on Montgomery Avenue (Main Street) just west of Boyce (Chestnut) Street. Thousands of hogs were slaughtered and packed each year at this “hoggery.” In 1860, the firm employed 54 hands and did a $130,000 business.
Ben Chandler was among the Unionists opposed to calling a convention on the secession question. Yet, he was a slaveowner. He had six slaves just prior to the war. Chandler was too old to fight and his sons were too young. When Mrs. James Whiteside used her Confederate money to buy tobacco and sold it for greenbacks, Chandler invested her earnings for her. Catherine Newell Chandler nursed some of the wounded soldiers at Chattanooga.
The Chandlers were faithful members of First Presbyterian Church and they were in attendance at Market and Seventh when the Union Army began firing shells from Stringer's Ridge. A Federal officer from Illinois was visiting at the Chandler home when he began admiring the spy glass bearing the Andrew Johnson inscription. He offered $10 for it. Mrs. Chandler accepted, fearing he would take it anyhow.
Back in Sevier County, the Union army seized the Barclay Chandler manor house for use as a headquarters. Barclay Chandler was a lone Democrat in a Republican county, and he had to flee to the Confederacy headquarters at Montgomery, Ala. Prior to the war, he was county court clerk at Sevier County. He and his wife had six daughters.
The Ben Chandler family left Chattanooga permanently in 1863, though Ben Chandler held onto some of his valuable Lookout Mountain property. He traveled extensively and put his children in school in the North. He finally settled at Pensacola, Fla. He was on a sojourn to New Orleans when he died about 1886.
The eldest daughter, Blanche, married John W. James, who became mayor of Chattanooga. Emma never married, and she and Charles B. resided at Pensacola. When Charles B. Chandler died there in 1926, he was apparently the last of this male line of Chandlers.