Husband Capt. Benjamin Chambers 1 2 3 4
Born: 1755 - Chamber's Mills, Franklin Co, PA 2 3
Christened:
Died: 29 Dec 1813 3 5
Buried:
Father: Col. Benjamin Chambers (Abt 1708-1788) 6 7
Mother: Jane Williams (1725-1795) 2
Marriage: Jun 1783 3
Wife Sarah Brown 3
Born: 1759 3
Christened:
Died: 27 Jul 1837 3
Buried:
Father: Capt. George Brown ( - ) 3
Mother: Agnes Maxwell ( - ) 3
Children
1 M George Chambers 1 2 3 8
Born: 24 Feb 1786 - Chambersburg, Franklin Co, PA 5 9
Christened:
Died: 25 Mar 1866 9 10
Buried:
Spouse: Alice Armstrong Lyon (1781-1848) 8 11
Marr: 6 Mar 1810 - Carlisle, Cumberland Co, PA 11 12 13
2 M Benjamin Chambers 3
Born: Abt 1796
Christened:
Died: 22 Aug 1825 3
Buried:
3 M William Chambers 3 14 15
Born: Abt 1796
Christened:
Died: 11 Sep 1823 3
Buried:
Spouse: Elizabeth Campbell ( -1828) 3 14 15
4 M Joseph Chambers 3
Born: 15 Feb 1799 - Chambersburg, Franklin Co, PA 11
Christened:
Died: 6 Oct 1851 11
Buried:
Spouse: Sarah Aston Madeira (1799-1867) 16
5 M Thomas Chambers 3
Born:
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
Spouse: Catharine Duncan ( - ) 3
6 F Sarah Chambers 17
Born:
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
Spouse: Dr. William J. Clarke ( - ) 17
7 F Susan B. Chambers
Born: 25 Oct 1804 17
Christened:
Died: 28 Oct 1884 17
Buried:
Spouse: Did Not Marry
General Notes: Husband - Capt. Benjamin Chambers
Prior to the revolutionary war, four Chambers brothers, James, Benjamin, George and Charles, emigrated from Ireland and settled in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where they lived for some time, long enough, in fact, to give their name to the place. About 1770 they moved to Westmoreland County, taking up a large tract of land in the townships of Washington and Allegheny. Benjamin, George and Charles did not long remain there, but James took up one thousand acres of government land and made his home in Washington township.
When a youth of but twenty years, he enlisted in the company of his brother, Captain James Chambers, and marched with it to Boston. Soon after he joined the army he was commissioned a captain, and in that rank fought at the battles of Long Island, Brandywine, and Germantown, with credit and gallantry. During the retreat of the army from Long Island, the Pennsylvania troops were assigned to the distinguished but hazardous honour of covering the movement. While assisting in this delicate and perilous manoeuvre, Captain Chambers had the great good fortune to arrest the attention of General Washington, win his commendation and receive from him, as a signal token of his approbation, a handsome pair of silver-mounted pistols, which long were treasured as a precious heir-loom in the family, eventually being bequeathed to Benjamin Chambers Bryan, a great-grandson of the original donee.
But the diseases of camp and the rigours of military life compelled him to retire from the army; just at what period of the struggle is not definitely known. Although no longer engaged in regular military service, his skill and experience and great personal courage made him the captain and leader in many expeditions against the Indians, whose savage and bloody forays upon the settlements of Bedford and Huntingdon counties were constantly creating great consternation and alarm.
At the conclusion of the treaty of peace with England he became extensively engaged in the manufacture of iron, and was the first to make iron castings in the county.
Influenced by the same enlightened liberality which characterized his father, he donated, in the year 1796, two lots of ground in Chambersburg as a site for an academy. A charter was procured in 1797, and shortly afterwards a suitable building was erected, and a select school organized and opened under the tuition of James Ross, whose Latin Grammar for many years maintained its distinguished position, without a rival, in the colleges and seminaries of America.
Captain Chambers left upon record, among the last business acts of his life, his solemn testimony to the importance and value of education, by earnestly enjoining upon his executors, in his will, that they should have all his minor children liberally educated. This betokened a zeal for learning that was certainly very rare in that day. He died in 1813, crowned with the esteem, respect, and love of the community for whose welfare and prosperity he had taxed his best energies, and to whose development he had devoted the labour of a lifetime. [MOMCV, 139]
He passed his infancy in Fort Chambers during the Indian troubles, and was a young man only twenty years old at the beginning of the Revolution. He went with the riflemen to Cambridge in the summer of 1775, and served with them through the rest of the year. He was appointed second lieutenant in the Berks County company, First Continental Infantry, Jan. 5, 1776; later he was promoted to be first lieutenant of Capt. David Harris' company. In his will he left his sword and pistols to his son, Benjamin. These pistols were a gift from General Washington in recognition of his gallantry at the battle of Long Island. After his retirement from the Continental service Captain Chambers returned to Chambersburg, and became the virtual successor of his father in the management of the Chambers property and the development of the town. He conducted the Chambers mills and worked the parts of the plantation not yet turned into town lots. In 1791 he laid out the town west of the Conococheague creek, and it was mainly through his exertions that the first bridge across the creek at Market street was built. His first dwelling house was on the west side of the Conococheague, opposite the Falling Spring graveyard. It was a simple, primitive structure, built of logs. In 1787, he erected the finest of the early stone mansions for which Chambersburg was noted at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Captain Chambers was one of the petitioners for the creation of the county of Franklin, in 1784, and he was the contractor for building the first court house. The only office he is known to have filled was that of County Auditor, 1793-94. In politics he was an ardent Federalist, and in religion a Presbyterian. In 1796 he gave the lot on which the Chambersburg Academy stands, and was one of the original trustees named in the charter.