My Genealogy Hound

JOHN M. CHAMBERS, M. D., was born in Madison, Ind., June 19, 1833. His father, Anthony Chambers, a farmer, was born in Nelson County, Ky., March 23, 1797. He acquired only a common-school education in youth, and began life with nothing. He was married in 1817 to Miss Nancy, a daughter of Garrett and Hannah (Marshall) Blue, both of Virginia, the latter of Hampshire County. The Blue family are of English origin, and Mrs. Blue was connected with the same family that Humphrey and Hon. Thomas Marshall sprang from. Anthony Chambers, soon after marriage, removed to Jefferson County, Ind., where he entered a tract of Government land of sixty acres at $1.25 per acre, and during his life lived in moderate circumstances, quiet and retired. He died December 29, 1884, the father of six children: Mary E. (McKay), Ahimaaz, Garrett B., John M., Ladema (wife of Dr. Copeland) and Jephtha. John M. and Ladema are now living. He was a member of the Free-Will Baptist Church, as is also his wife, who is still living in the eighty-eighth year of her age (1887), but who has been a cripple during the past five years of her life. Garrett B. Chambers was a minister of the Free-Will Baptist Church in Campbell County, Ky., forty-two years, and died in Little Rock, Ark., in September, 1884, in the sixty-third year of his age. Ahimaaz Chambers, grandfather of Dr. Chambers, was born in Kentucky, and was a farmer in good circumstances. He was a slave holder, and was married to Miss Deborah Marshall, related also to the celebrated Kentucky family of Marshalls, and they were the parents of five children: Isaac, Anthony, John, Ellen and Magdalena. He died in an old age, was never in any war or held any office, but his son, Isaac, was in the war of 1812, participating in the battle of New Orleans. Some of the brothers of Ahimaaz Chambers and his father were in the American Revolution, and drew pensions in the latter part of their lives. The Chambers family are of English origin, and came from Virginia to Kentucky. John M. Chambers was educated in the schools of Jefferson County, Ind., and in 1852 entered the College of Franklin, Johnson Co., Ind., where he received a scientific education, graduating in 1854. In 1856 he began reading medicine under the preceptorship of Dr. J. R. Halderman, of Madison, Ind., and in 1857 attended a course of lectures in the medical department of the University of New York, graduating from that institution in the spring of 1859. He located at Independence in the fall of 1859, and began the practice of his profession, which he has continued without intermission until the present time, 1887. On December 1, 1866, he was married to Miss Nancy J. Sellers, a daughter of Durham Sellers, a native and a farmer and teacher of Kenton County. To this marriage was born Schuyler S., who died in infancy. Mrs. Chambers, who was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, died September 30, 1868, in the twenty-third year of her age. Dr. Chambers was next married on January 5, 1871, to Miss Margaret, a daughter of James H. Metcalf, whose history appears in this work. To this second marriage have been born four children, two of whom died in infancy, and Nannie Belle, who died in her third year; Dawson is still living. Dr. Chambers also carries on a farm of 250 acres worth $15,000 in addition to the practice of his profession. In antebellum days Dr. Chambers was a Democrat, but since then has been a Republican. He was assessor of Jefferson County, Ind., served two terms as county school commissioner, was police judge of Independence, was commissioned colonel of Kenton County militia by Gov. Bramlette, and in 1879, though in a strongly Democratic county, was elected to represent Kenton County in the Lower House of the Kentucky Legislature over the Democratic nominee by a majority of 256 votes. Isaac Chambers served a term in the Indiana Legislature.