Jane Chandler's father, John C. Chandler

John Chandler (1786-1875) is listed as the father of the wife of my 4 times great uncle (Spencer Clack Rogers.)

I wanted to learn about him because he lived through the Civil War in Sevier County, TN, where some of my ancestors lived about that time also.

He is noted as having built the newer building of Wheatlands after the original one burned in 1824. He had inherited it in 1819 from his father Timothy Chandler #1 who had settled the area after serving in the Revolutionary War...receiving land as payment for serving for North Carolina's militia.

John C. was the youngest son, out of at least 11 children in his parents' home. I haven't looked further to see if there were indeed 2 daughters named Rebecca, but born 4 years apart and both living to be adults. I have just merged them into one person on my tree for now.

John C. Chandler was born in Wheatlands (the original building) in 1786. He was the youngest son, with at least 2 older brothers, so I wonder why he inherited the homestead. Perhaps because he was still living there when his father Timothy died age 91. John's mother Hetty (Mahetible Jane Temple or Terrell) had been much younger that her husband and lived 5 years more until 1824 when she was 84.

Both of John's parents had been born in Virginia, but John himself was born in Wilkes County NC. Many of his older siblings had also been born in Virginia, but the family apparently lived in this western county near the blue ridge mountains of North Carolina by the 1770's. At one time Daniel Boone also lived in Wilkes County NC, but we don't know if it was at the same time as the Chandlers.

There aren't any records of when the Timothy Chandler family crossed the Appalachian Mountains and settled in Sevier County TN, just west of the area that would late become the Smoky Mountain Park. But his hand written deed for land from the State of Tennessee in 1807 describes some of his property in Sevier County. It's quite possible that he already was living there in the community that became known as Boyds Creek, where his family has lived until the twentieth century. But all the children of Timothy and Hetty had been born before they moved west. Remember North Carolina owned the lands that became Tennessee until 1796.

Oh my. I just found a SAR (Sons of the American Revolution) installed headstone for Timothy Chandler #1, the Revolutionary War patriot from North Carolina, (placed in Boyds Creek TN.) It says he died in 1794...not 1819.

So how did Find A Grave published the date Timothy Chandler had died on April 25, 1819 while including this picture of the memorial stone from the SAR?

OK, back to John C. Chandler. He married Eleanor "Ellen" Shahan Chandler who had been born in Sevier County in 1790. That's about the time that my Rogers ancestors also arrived in that community. Ellen lived until 9 April 1826, dying just at age 36. She had an infant son who died that year, and she gave birth that year to a daughter. The records don't say if there was illness at that time, or if the daughter died as well.

John and Ellen had 9 children, 7 of whom lived to adulthood, including my Great times four Aunt Jane Chandler Rogers (1816-1855.)  She was their 4th child, and born before the new brick plantation home was built around 1825.  I don't know where Ancestry came up with her birth and death dates, so I'm going with them until I find anything different.

Just before the Civil War, John Chandler had married again in 1859 when he was 73, and had his new wife's youngest 2 children living with them in 1860 census. 

"John Chandler (1786–1875), inherited Wheatlands in 1819, and under his direction the plantation grew to become one of Sevier County's largest farms, covering 3,700 acres (1,500 ha) by 1850. With free slave labor his 1860 census shows he had real estate at value of $20,000. But with emancipation he freed his slaves, but offered to pay them to remain and work for him."

Chandler's freed slaves inherited part of the land of Wheatlands when John died in 1875, and formed the Chandler Gap community in the hills south of the plantation.  The 1860 slave schedule index is all that is available on Ancestry, but for a large plantation, with wheat as its major crop, I would imagine there were a lot of farm workers. The information that I've found on the freed slaves is not precise, but I do know a bit about the families of the black workers who were in the house as servants. See my last post here.