NEW HAMPSHIRE MEN IN MICHIGAN. • 193
in 1833. He settled at Detroit, and became an eminently successful dry goods nierchant. In politics a Whig, while that party was in existence ; he was elected Mayor of Detroit in 1S51 ; but while leading the Whig ticket largely, he was defeated as candidate for Governor, in 1852. He was the first Repub- lican Senator ever sent from Michigan, succeeding Senator Cass in office, tak- ing his seat in the Thirty-fifth Congress, in 1857. and served as a member of the Committee on the District of Columbia, the Committee on Commerce, and the Committee on Revolutionary Claims. He was appointed chairman of the Committee on Commerce, in 1861 ; which position he held till 1875. ^^ ^^' dition to his important position on the Committee on Commerce, he was a member of the Committee on Mines and Mining, and also a member of each of the celebrated congressional committees on the conduct of the war, during the thirty-seventh and thirty-eight congresses. During the war of the rebellion, his relations with President Lincoln were of a rao,st cordial and intimate char- acter, and he was a member of the national committee appointed to convey the remains of the martyred Chief Magistrate to Illinois. His faith in the integrity of the republic, never wavered, even in the darkest hours of the great conflict. He was an earnest and powerful advocate of our national banking system, and aided materially in its establishment upon a broad and substantial basis. During his whole public career, his efforts for the commer- cial and other vital interests of the country, were assiduous and untiring, and accompanied with a large degree of success.
He occupied the position of United States Senator, twenty-two years, and in all that long congressional career, he was particularly noted for his unswerv- ing devotion to the interests of the State he represented, winning even from his opponents much approbation. Amidst all the temptations, which always surround a leader of a great political party, it has been said that he never stained his hands with corruption, and even his enemies admit that his official career was distinguished by rigid integrity. He died November i, 1879. He had made a speech in Chicago, before retiring to his room, at the Grand Pacific Hotel, and spent a short time before retiring conversing cheerfully with a party of friends, and was expecting to make a speech at Detroit the next evening. But that speech, which was to be his last before election, he never made.
��Death passed into the chamber of the sleeper,
The dai-k and silent room. And as he entered, darker grew and deeper,
The silence, and the gloom.
��All the noted New Hampshire men in the State rallied to his funeral in Detroit, the ladies of their families vied with each other in sending floral trib- utes for the occasion. Mrs. Chandler, a highly esteemed christian lady, still resides in Detroit. His daughter, Mrs. Eugene Hale, lives in Maine. Mr. Chandler was a man of strong convictions, utterly fearless in his denunciations of what he considered wrong, and was perhaps more feared and disliked by his opponents, than almost any man in his party. There were some assaila- ble points in his character, and his enemies made the most of them, but none ever doubted his great abilities.
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