Alexander Hunter Chamberlain

Alexander Hunter Chamberlain, b July 4, 1818 in Abbeville District, South Carolina, d February 13, 1883 in Blue Ridge, Falls County, Texas in the of his son-in-law, William Henry Mitchell, and buried in Blue Ridge Cemetery - was a son of Thomas and Margaret (Oliver) Chamberlain, and a grandson of John and Rebecca (Cobb) Chamberlain and James and Mary (Hunter) Oliver. He was named for his great-grandfather, Alexander Hunter who married Jane (Morrow), who lived and died in South Carolina. The Chamberlain, Oliver, Hunter, and Morrow families were all slave owners, and had large plantations in South Carolina. After Thomas Chamberlain's death in South Carolina, his widow, Margaret (Oliver) Chamberlain moved in 1843 with her children in Autauga County, Alabama - remaining there for a year, and then settling in late 1844 in "Old Yalobusha" County, Mississippi (present day Grenada County), where Margaret died in 1866 on the Mississippi Plantation of her son, William Cobb Chamberlain. The twelve children of Thomas and Margaret (Oliver) Chamberlain were: An infant b & d 1812, Alfred b 1814, William Cobb b October 13, 1816, Alexander Hunter b July 4, 1818, Margaret Caroline, b 1820, who married Thomas P. Bowen; Rebecca, b 1821; Thomas Andrew b April 8, 1823; James Oliver, b 1824 who came to Falls County, Texas - was a "Trader" - settled in Robertson County, Texas, where he died; Lorenzo Dow, b 1825; George Washington, b 1830 who was unmarried and traveling with his brother, Alexander Hunter Chamberlain, to come to Texas and while crossing the Mississippi River on a Ferry, was drowned; Ariadna Jane b April 17, 1832 who married William G. B. Wilson; and Ann Elizabeth, b 1835, who married C. H. Sipy - the "Slave Manager" for his brother-in-law, William Cobb Chamberlain.

On July 25, 1844 in Autauga County, Alabama, Alexander hunter Chamberlain married Temperance Killingsworth Aldridge, b May 5, 1827 in Autauga County, d January 8, 1862 in Alto Springs, Falls County, Texas of "consumption complicated by childbirth." She was buried behind the family log mear Little Brazos River in Alto Springs - "due to a flood and bad freeze, the funeral could not be held in Blue Ridge Cemetery." Temperance was a daughter of William Killingsworth Aldridge and his first wife, Martha Lucinda (Ghiberti) Aldridge, and a granddaughter of Reubin and Anne (Killingsworth) Aldridge and Angelo and Lucinda (Oliver) Ghiberti. After the death of her mother, Temperance's father married second to Martha Rose motley, and Temperance later named a daughter for two of her young step-sisters.

In late 1844, Alexander Hunter and Temperance moved with her father's new family, and his own mother and siblings, into Mississippi, where the Aldridge Family settled on Choctaw County and the Chamberlains in "Old Yalobusha" County (present day Grenada County). They were of the Baptist denomination, and Alexander became a Deacon in the Mars Hill Baptist Church - settling down for five years. In 1849, Alexander was bitten by the "gold fever bug," and, resettling his wife and two sons in Choctaw County next door to her father, he sailed March 21, 1849 for the California Gold Rush as a passenger on the Ship Samoset - sailing from Vicksburg, Mississippi just nine days before the birth of his third child and first daughter. He settled in a swelling on the Banks of the Consumnes River in California, together with a brother, Lorenze Dow Chamberlain, and a cousin, James T. Oliver, and four other gold miners. His slave, Thomas Chamberlain, completed the occupants of the swelling.

Alexander Hunter Chamberlain did not return to Mississippi until Spring or Summer of 1853, where his fourth child was born the next year; and then the family moved to Texas and settled in Alto Springs, Falls County, where their last three children were born. They brought five slaves with them to Texas, crossed the Mississippi River by ferry - traveling with mule-drawn covered wagons.

The seven children of Alexander Hunter and Temperance Killingsworth (Aldridge) Chamberlain were:
William Alonzo Chamberlain, b November 25, 1845, in Old Yalobusha County, Mississippi, d March 15, 1864 while in jail in Mexico with his father and brother, buried on the Texas side of the Rio Grande River. The father and two sons had been imprisoned by the Mexican Government during the Civil War. Alexander Hunter Chamberlain "bribed" a Mexican guard to help them take William Alonzo's body across the river to bury him on Texas soil - promising to return to the jail in Mexico if he would help them. They were released from jail at the end of the Civil War, and then the father and surviving son, Angelo Ghiberta, returned to Falls County. William Alonzo Chamberlain was not married - being 19 years old when he died.

Angelo Ghiberta Chamberlain, b October 1, 1847, d May 14, 1923 and buried in Blue Ridge, Cemetery, Falls County, Texas - married December 20, 1871 in Falls County to Sarah ("Sally") Harlan, and had eleven children.

Frances Tucker Chamberlain, b March 30, 1849 in Choctaw County, Mississippi just nine days after her father sailed for the California Gold Rush, d November 24, 1934 in California - married first to Henry H. Sharp and had two children; married second to Zill H. McCaleb and had no issue.

Margaret Lucinda Chamberlain, b June 23, 1854 in Old Yalobusha County, Mississippi - the fourth child, but the first born after her father's return from the California Gold Rush - married September 9, 1869 in Falls County, Texas to William Henry Mitchell, b July 4, 1846 in Texas, d March 6, 1917 in Blue Ridge - son of Memnon A. and Martha (Harlan) Mitchell who came to Texas soon after their marriage in Indiana in the Fall of 1834 with her parents, Dr. Isaiah and Nancy (Henry) Harlan. They were the parents of fourteen children.

Sam Houston Chamberlain, b February 19, 1856 at Alto Springs, Falls County, Texas - the fifth child and first on born in Texas, d March 14, 1935 and buried in Bremond Cemetery, Robertson County, Texas - married Anna Dora Bryant, and had five children.

Mary Eliza ("Mollie") Chamberlain, b July 16, 1859 at Alto Springs, Falls County, Texas, d February 20, 1942 - married in 1877 in California to Miner Charles Fuller, b in Canada, and had thirteen children.

Martha Elizabeth Chamberlain, b April 16, 1861 at Alto Springs, Falls County, Texas, d December 6, 1861 and buried behind the family at Alto Springs where her mother was buried about a month later.

The Civil War was raging when Temperance Killingsworth (Aldridge) Chamberlain died, and by 1864, it appeared that the first two sons might have to enter the Confederate States Army. Alexander remembered his trip into Mexico in 1861-1862 after his wife's death, with his brother, James Oliver Chamberlain, to "gather Spanish ponies," and now in 1864 he returned to Mexico with a slave, Bill Chamberlain, and his two eldest sons to remove them of any chance of being inducted into the Confederate States Army. They were immediately incarcerated by the Mexicans until the end of the Civil War, when Alexander Hunter returned to Falls County with his second son - the eldest having died there. The document filed when Alexander entered Mexico in 1864 described him as a man of "Tall Stature, Regular Complexion, Grey Eyes, Extra Long Nose, Regular Mouth, Greyish hair, Has Beard," His pictures verify the accuracy of the description.

Shortly after March 1871, Alexander Hunter Chamberlain decided to make a second trip to California, taking his two daughters, Frances Tucker Chamberlain and Mary Eliza ("Mollie") Chamberlain, and his youngest son, Sam Houston Chamberlain with him. They settled near Uriah in Low Gap, California, where Mollie married in 1877. Alexander kept a small notebook-journal during this stay in California, recording information about fruit trees and grapevines he was purchasing to bring back to Falls County, Texas; listing items and costs of purchases such as tobacco; and listing the trees cut for lumber and delivery to people building homes and businesses - ending with information about his return by train to Hearne, Texas with "a steamer trunk with a false bottom in which he had hidden two pouches of gold dust." This gold dust was to have been stolen after arrival in Hearne and final lap of the journey back to Falls County. Whether or not he had the gold dust is not proven; but it is known that he planted the grapevines, as his record showed, and he planted some fruit trees on the land of his children, Angelo Ghiberta and Margaret Lucinda. He grafted pear trees to crab apple trees, and four of these are still bearing the different flavored pears on the Chamberlain farm at Blue Ridge.

Alexander Hunter Chamberlain returned to Falls County about 1878 with his two unmarried children and his daughter and new son-in-law, where he died. He was a man who had been reared to be a "Gentleman" with slaves to do all the physical work. After the slaves were freed, one of the former adult men taught him carpentry; and there are still some of the rawhide-bottomed chairs, his tools, and other examples of his work - now in the Falls County Historical Museum.

Transcribed by Kay Cunningham

Some biographies from "Families of Falls County", compiled and edited by the Falls County Historical Commission.
Permission granted to Theresa Carhart by the Falls County Historical Commission, for use on this page.