During one of the last years of his residence at Bedford, Mr. Chandler was enrolled in the local militia company and turned out at the "general muster." He did not, however, succeed in bringing himself to perfect obedience to the orders of the young captain, whom he knew he could easily out-wrestle and out-mow, and was arrested for insubordination. He was kept under arrest through one afternoon, but the court-martial which had been ordered for his trial was recalled and he was released. He was afterwards for a short time on the staff of the commanding officer, General Riddle, but his removal from New Hampshire took place at about this time. After his Janesville, Wis., speech, two days before his death, Mr. Chandler was called upon by the Captain Colley who had placed him under arrest nearly fifty years before. Mr. Colley is now a resident of Rock county, Wis., and had driven a long distance to listen to his old-time subordinate, or rather insubordinate, and to revive with him old memories.
In the year 1833 Zachariah Chandler entered the store of Kendrick & Foster of Nashua, and in September of that year, moved by the same impulse that has sent so many New Englanders into the growing territories, turned his face Westward, and in company with his brother-in-law, the late Franklin Moore, came to the city, which from that time to his death was his home. He had not then shown in any marked degree the qualities which made his future success so eminent, and was apparently simply a good specimen out of thousands of the energetic, determined, and sagacious young men, who, leaving more sterile New England, have subdued the forests, moulded the politics and conducted the business of half a dozen Western States.
For the old homestead and its occupants, and for the town of Bedford, Mr. Chandler always entertained a warm affection. He was a good correspondent, and his home letters, which until his entrance into public life were frequent and long, breathed a genuine feeling of filial and brotherly affection. After his election to the Senate, with the voluminous correspondence which his official position involved, his letters to the old home became less frequent, but to the last he kept up occasional communication with the surviving friends at his birthplace. During his father's life he visited Bedford twice or more each year, and after his father's death made at least one annual journey there. In 1850, when the centennial celebration of the incorporation of the township occurred, Mr. Chandler was among those invited to be present, and sent the following letter of regret:
Detroit, May 16, 1850.
Gentlemen:—I regret exceedingly my inability to accept your kind invitation to be present at your Centennial Celebration of the settlement of the good old town of Bedford. It would have afforded me great pleasure to meet my old friends upon that occasion, but circumstances beyond my own control will prevent. The ashes of the dead, as well as the loved faces of the living, attract me strongly to my native town, and that attachment I find increasing each day of my life. Permit me, in conclusion, to offer: "The town of Bedford—May her descendants (widely scattered through the land) never dishonor their paternity."
Be pleased to accept, for yourselves and associates, my kind regards, and believe me,
Truly yours,
Z. CHANDLER.
His later visits were looked forward to with much interest, not only by his relatives, but by the neighbors, to whom a talk with him was one of the events of the year. He was there always genial and friendly, kept up his acquaintance with the old residents, and thoroughly enjoyed his association with them. His last visit to the homestead was after the close of his campaign in Maine, in August, 1879. He then met many of his boyhood friends, and enjoyed a ramble over the undulating fields which stretch from the central hills toward the banks of the Merrimack. And as he drove for the last time down the road from the house of his birth toward Manchester, he pointed to a pine grove which skirts the northern border of the Chandler farm, and said to his companion, "That, to me, is the most beautiful grove in the world."
New Hampshire has been prolific in strong men with the granite of its hills in the fibres of their characters. Bedford itself has been the birthplace of scores of the leading men of the thriving city of Manchester; of Joseph E. Worcester, the lexicographer; of Benjamin Orr, of Maine; of David Aiken, Isaac O. Barnes, and Jacob Bell, of the Massachusetts bar; of the Hon. David Atwood, of Wisconsin; of Judge A. S. Thurston, of Elmira, N. Y.; of Hugh Riddle, of the Rock Island Railroad, and Gen. George Stark, of the Northern Pacific; of the Rev. Silas Aiken, of the Boston pulpit; and of others of large influence in their generations. But upon no one of its sons was the impress of its peculiar history so indelibly stamped as upon the young man who left it to aid in founding a powerful State amid the Great Lakes, and who became the foremost representative of that State's vigorous political conviction and purpose.
CHAPTER III.
REMOVAL TO MICHIGAN—MERCANTILE SUCCESS—BUSINESS INVESTMENTS.
