CHARLES CHANDLER, attorney at law, with offices in rooms 3 and 4 Ledyard block, corner of Pearl and Ottawa streets, Grand Rapids, is, on his father's side, a lineal descendant of William Chandler and Annis, his wife, who came from England in 1637, and settled at Roxbury, Mass. They were among the first settlers in that locality, and from them have sprung the different branches of the Chandler family which subsequently settled in other parts of the colonies of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Connecticut, and in New York, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and other states. The descendants of this English immigrant have been more or less noted in politics, in the army and navy, as well as among business and professional men, as the annals of each state will show, while on his mother's side he sprang from the Woosters and the Beards, who came from England and settled, as early as 1639, in the region of the Housatonic river in Connecticut; where to this day can be met the descendants of these families.

Judge John Chandler, the third in the line of the Chandler family, was a noted jurist in his day, and a man of affairs. He represented Massachusetts in the first congress of the colonies, which met at Albany, N.Y., in which he exhibited great ability. The grandfather of the subject of this sketch, Samuel Chandler, who was sixth in the line of descent, was born at Pomfret, Conn., in 1775. While still a young man, he moved to New York, and settled near Utica, where Charles, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in 1805. The latter graduated at Hamilton college, Clinton, N.Y., in the class of 1825, under the presidency of the father of our eminent townsman, Col. Joseph Penny. In 1833 he married, at Augusta, N.Y., Eliza Wooster, and in the following year emigrated to Michigan and settled at Clinton, Lenawee county. He was a farmer by occupation and also engaged in mercantile pursuits; in politics he was a whig and was by that party elected a member of the convention of 1850 to revise the state constitution in which he took a prominent part. He allied himself with the republican party at its formation,

and filled a prominent position in its counsels in southern Michigan during the remainder of his life. He was successfully elected county clerk, register of deeds of Lenawee county, and for more than twenty years postmaster at Clinton, Mich., where he died March 10, 1871.

Charles Chandler, the subject of this sketch, the eighth in the line of descent, was their third child and was born at Clinton, Mich., April 16, 1838. He worked on the farm summers, and in winters attended district school until his eighteenth year, when he, with his father's family, went to Adrian, Mich., to live, while his father was a county official; her he attended the Union school. He there became so imbued with the desire for a collegiate education, that he obtained the consent of his parents to pursue the preparatory course of study, and in the fall of 1859 he entered the sophomore class at the university at Ann Arbor from which he graduated with the class of 1862, receiving the degree of A. B. Subsequently he received from the same institution the degree of A. M. In the winter of

1862-63 he taught district school near Clinton, and in the fall of 1863, upon the recommendation of the professors at the university and the Hon. J. M. Gregory, then superindent of public instruction of Michigan, he was appointed to the superintendency of the union schools at Grand Haven, Mich., where he taught acceptably for two years. In June 1865, he resigned his position at the latter place, to accept a similar position at Hastings, where he remained one year, and having been appointed to the principalship at the grammar schools at the city of Grand Rapids in 1866, without solicitation on his part, he resigned his position at Hastings to accept this new appointment. He occupied such position for eleven years, or until August 1877, when, although reappointed for the ensuing year, he resigned to enter upon the study of law.

While living in Hastings, December 26, 1865, Mr. Chandler married, at Grand Rapids, Louis Harwood White, only daughter and eldest child of Capt. Thomas W. White, then of Grand Rapids, but formerly of Grand Haven, Mich. The Whites were among the early settlers of the Grand River valley, having emigrated from Massachusetts to Michigan in the early 'thirties, and together with their family relatives, the Ferrys and Gilberts, founded the thriving lake town of Grand Haven, at the mouth of the Grand River. These families have added much to the local history of western Michigan, and have honorably filled high political positions, both in state and nation.

Upon resigning his position as teacher in the public schools in the fall of 1877, Mr. Chandler entered the law school at Ann Arbor and graduated therefrom with the degree of L.L. B., in the spring of 1879, in what, up until that time, was the largest law class to graduate from that institution. In the senior year of his law course he was elected class president. Mr. Chandler, upon such graduation, entered the office of the Hon. J. C. FitzGerald, of Grand Rapids, Mich., where he remained until the summer of 1893, when he opened an office and started in business for himself, and has since received a fair share of the legal business in this part of the state. He has made a specialty of probate and chancery branches of his profession and has filled positions as trustee and executor in several estates, involving assets of large amounts, in which intricate and complicated questions have arisen, and which he has so conducted as to avoid long and expensive litigation.

Although repeatedly tendered political and official positions, during his residence in Grand Rapids, Mr. Chandler has always declined, with one exception -- that of school trustee. He accepted this position for the reason that he felt that he owed a duty to the city, in whose public schools he had for so many years served as a teacher. In this capacity he served four years, from 1880 to the fall of 1884, and declined a re-appointment for business reasons. While on the board of education he served as chairman of the committee on teachers, also for one year was elected president of the board. Mr. Chandler is not a communicant of any religious body, but is an attendant at the Park Congregational church, of which his wife is a member, and has been a member of the board of trustees and an officer of the board. He is likewise in full sympathy with the broad views entertained and practiced by this branch of the Congregational orders in this state. Mr. Chandler is a republican in politics and has always voted in state and national affairs with his party, and has often served as delegate in state, county and city

conventions. Mr. Chandler has the universal reputation among the citizens of western Michigan of being an honest and upright man, and a conscientious and painstaking practitioner in his profession.