It will be noticed that the given name is written Zacharias. Mrs. Lee still speaks of her brother as Zacharias, and his name is also so printed in the Chandler genealogy in the centennial history of Bedford. The Senator in his signatures simply used the initial of his first name, but he ultimately adopted the ancestral Zachariah, and that was the name which he made famous, and by which he will be known in this biography.
Zachariah Chandler's father and paternal grandfather, Samuel and Zachariah, are described as spare men of medium stature, but energetic and full of endurance. His mother, Margaret Orr, was tall and powerful; her distinguished son resembled her in face, and inherited from her many of his most vigorous traits. She was a woman of great strength of character and robust sense, and exercised a large influence over her children. Her family was a remarkable one; her father was the conspicuous man of his day in his part of New Hampshire; her brother, Benjamin Orr, became the foremost lawyer of Maine early in the present century, and served one term from that State in Congress; her half-brother, the Rev. Isaac Orr, was a man of many accomplishments and a diverse scholarship, a prolific writer on scientific and philosophical topics, and with a claim on the general gratitude as the inventor of the application of the air-tight principle to the common stove.
The boy Zachariah was healthy, strong, quick-tempered, and self-reliant, and the contrast was marked between his sturdiness and the constitutional feebleness of his short-lived brothers. The traditions of his childhood, still fondly cherished by his surviving sister, all show that from his cradle he was ready to fight his own battles, and that his "pluckiness" was innate. One juvenile anecdote related by Mrs. Lee will illustrate scores that might be repeated: His father's poultry-yard was ruled by a large and ill-tempered gander, the strokes of whose horny beak were the dread of the smaller children. The oldest brother was one day driven back by this fowl while attempting to cross the road, when the young "Zach.," then three years old, called out "Do, Sammy, do, I'll keep e' dander off," and rushed into a pitched and victorious battle with the "dander," during which his brother made good his escape.
His rudimentary education was obtained in the little brick school-house at Bedford, which remains substantially unchanged and is still used. Here he attended school regularly from the age of five or six until he was fourteen or fifteen. He had an excellent memory, and was a good scholar, standing well with others of his age. He was a leader in the boys' sports, always active, and entering with zest into every frolic. Of these days, one of his early playmates—now the Rev. S. G. Abbott, of Stamford, Conn.—thus writes: "The death of Mr. Chandler revives the memories of half a century ago. The old brick school-house where we were taught together the rudiments of our education; the country store where his father sold such a wonderful variety of merchandise for the wants of the inner and outer man; the broad acres of field and forest in the ancestral domain where we used to rove and hunt; his uncle's 'tavern,' the cheerful home of the traveler when there were no railroads, situated on a great thoroughfare, constantly alive with stages, teams, cattle, sheep, swine, turkeys, and pedestrian immigrants—all these form a picture as distinct to the mind's eye as if a scene of the present. No unimportant feature of that picture in my boyish memory was a rough-built, overgrown, awkward, good-natured, popular boy, who went by the never-forgotten, familiar sobriquet of 'Zach.' He never forgot it. After more than forty years' separation, when I called on him in the capitol, and apologized for calling him Zach., in his old, rollicking way he said 'Oh, you can call me old Zach., that's what they all call me out West.'"
THE SCHOOL-HOUSE AT BEDFORD, N. H.
In his fifteenth and sixteenth years he attended the academies at Pembroke and Derry, with his older brother, who was fitting for college. In the winter following he taught school one term in the Piscataquog or "Squog" district. As is the rule in country schools, many of the pupils were about as large as the teacher, and the "Squog" boys had the reputation of being especially unruly. The usual disorders commenced, but after some trouble the energetic young man from the Chandler farm established his supremacy, and the scholars recognized the fact that there was a head to the school. Mr. Chandler always spoke with interest of his brief experience in teaching, although he never claimed any particular success in that calling. While he was thus employed the teacher of the brick school, in which he had been so long a pupil, was a Dartmouth sophomore who in his "boarding around" was especially welcome at the house of Samuel Chandler. This was James F. Joy, who then formed with the young Zachariah an intimacy, which ranked among the causes that determined Mr. Joy's own selection of Detroit as a home, and lasted through life.
In the latter years of his school life young Chandler worked on the farm through the summer, and the last season that he was home he took entire charge, employing the help and superintending the labor. Thomas Kendall, who was with him during three summers, and who is still living in Bedford, says, "Zach. was a good man to work and a good man to work for." He was just in his dealings with the men, but vigorous as an overseer, and himself as good a "farm hand" as there was. Stories are still told of his achievements in mowing contests with the men. He had no liking, as had many of his fellows, for hunting or fishing, but he was fond of athletic sports, and was the best wrestler in town. "Whoever took hold of Zach.," says Mr. Kendall, "had to go down."