In 1833 Zachariah Chandler, then still a minor, joined the current of Western emigration from New York and New England which had sprung up with the completion of the Erie canal, and in the fall of that year entered into the retail dry-goods business at Detroit. Franklin Moore (the husband of his sister Annis), who had already visited Michigan, came with him as a partner in the enterprise, and the original firm name was Moore & Chandler. At the outset the young merchant had some assistance from his father, who, the tradition is, offered him $1,000 in cash or the collegiate education which his brothers received, the money being chosen. Samuel Chandler also subsequently bought a store for his son's use, but it is understood that all such advances were speedily and fully repaid. The building in which the future Senator first laid the foundation of his ample fortune was located where the Biddle House now stands; it adjoined the mansion of Governor Hull, and was subsequently transformed into the American House. Upon its shelves Moore & Chandler displayed a small general stock, representing the ample assortment usual in frontier stores, and saw a promising business answer their invitations. In the following spring they removed to a brick store (on the site now occupied by S. P. Wilcox & Co.), near the main corner of the town (where Woodward and Jefferson avenues meet). In the summer of 1834 Detroit was visited by the Asiatic cholera, which appeared in malignant form, and was attended by an appalling death rate, and an almost entire suspension of general traffic. Mr. Chandler did not yield to the prevalent panic, but remained at his business and was indefatigable in his efforts to relieve the universal distress. His vigorous constitution and plain habits guarded his own health, and he cared for the sick and buried the dead without faltering amid the dreadful scenes of the pestilence. For weeks he and a clerk (Mr. William N. Carpenter, of Detroit) alternated in watching by sick beds, and, with others of like strength and courage, brightened with unassuming heroism the gloomy picture of a season of dreadful mortality.
On August 16, 1836, the firm of Moore & Chandler was dissolved, and the junior partner retained the established business, and continued its vigorous prosecution. Those who knew him then describe a fair-haired, awkward, tall, gaunt and wiry youth, blunt in his ways, simple in habits, diffident with others, but shrewd, tireless in labor, and of unlimited energy. He worked day and night, slept in the store, often on the counter or a bale of goods, acted as proprietor, salesman, or porter as was needed, lived on $300 a year, avoided society, and allowed only the Presbyterian church to divide his attention with business. He kept a good stock, especially strong in the staples, bought prudently, and there was no better salesman in the West. His trade became especially large with the farmers who used Detroit as a market, and the unaffected manners and homely good sense of the rising merchant soon gave him a popularity with his rural customers that foreshadowed the strong hold of his later life on the affectionate confidence of the yeomanry of the State.
The training which this intense application added to native vigor of judgment early made him a thorough business man, exact in dealings, strong in an intuitive knowledge of men, sound in his judgment of values, prudent in ventures, and of an unflagging energy which pushed his trade wherever an opening could be found. As interior Michigan developed he added jobbing to his retail department, and became known as a close and prudent buyer, a shrewd judge of credits, and a most successful collector. A business established at the commencement of an era of marvelous growth, pushed with such industry, drawn upon only for the meagre expenses of a young man living with the closest economy, and unembarrassed by speculation, meant a fortune, and at twenty-seven years of age Mr. Chandler found himself with success assured and wealth only a matter of patience. His nearest approach to financial disaster was in the ruinous crash which swept "the wild-cat banks" and so many mercantile enterprises out of existence in Michigan in the year 1838. Like others he found it almost impossible at that time to obtain money, and the Bank of Michigan which had promised him accommodations was compelled by its own straitened condition to decline his paper. Thus it happened that a note for about $5,000 given to Arthur Tappan & Co. of New York fell due and went to protest. Mr. Chandler, accustomed to New England strictness in business and exceedingly sensitive on the point of meeting all engagements, was inclined to treat the protest as bankruptcy itself, and called upon his Bedford friend, James F. Joy, then a young lawyer in Detroit and for years afterwards Mr. Chandler's counsel, to have a formal assignment drawn up. What followed is given in Mr. Joy's language: "I looked carefully into his affairs, and found them in what I believed to be a sound and healthy condition. I then said: 'I won't draw an assignment for you, Chandler; there is no need of it.' 'What shall I do?' was his answer, 'I can't pay that note.' My reply was, 'Write to Tappan & Co. and say that you cannot get the discounts that have been promised, but that if they will renew the note you will be able to pay it when it next falls due.' He took my advice and went through, and never had any trouble with his finances after that. I reminded Mr. Chandler of that occurrence about two months before his death, when he said he remembered it perfectly, and added that if it had not been for that advice he might have been a clerk on a salary to this day."
Mr. Chandler's was the first business in Detroit whose sales aggregated $50,000 in a single year, and the reaching of that limit was hailed by the community as a great mercantile triumph. He showed increasing commercial sagacity at every stage of his active business life. He pushed his jobbing trade in all directions and made his interior customers his personal friends. He invested his surplus profits in productive real estate which grew rapidly in value. He was never tempted into speculation, and he was very reluctant to incur debt. As a result, ten years after he landed at Detroit he had a reputation throughout the new Northwest as a merchant of ample means, personal honesty, large connections, and remarkable enterprise.
Between 1840 and 1850 Mr. Chandler reduced his business to a purely wholesale basis and made himself independently and permanently rich. He had opportunities and they were improved to the full. [And it may be here said without exaggeration that every dollar of the fortune with which he closed his career as an active merchant represented legitimate business enterprise; it was the product of personal industry and good judgment put forth in a field wisely selected and with only slight aid at the outset.] The wiry stripling had become a stalwart man, despite a family consumptive tendency which at times caused alarm. Prosperity did not affect the plainness of his manners and speech, nor the simplicity of his character, and maturity added method to, without impairing, his powers of personal application. He was a man alive with energy and thoroughly in earnest. He was active and influential in all public matters in Detroit. Every year he drove through the State, visited its cross-roads and its clearings, saw its pioneer merchants at their homes and in their stores, made up his estimate of men and their means, studied the growth of the State, and marked the course of the budding of its resources. He thus kept himself thoroughly informed as to the material development of Michigan, and acquired that intimate knowledge of the State and its representative men which formed such an important part of his equipment for public life. His companion in these numerous commercial journeys was the man who succeeded him in the Senate, the Hon. Henry P. Baldwin of Detroit, who came to Michigan largely through his solicitations, was engaged in business for years by his side, and remained his intimate associate through life. This part of Mr. Chandler's career abounded in the making of friendships which endured until death. While strict in all his dealings, he was considerate and his sympathy was quick with struggling industry and honesty. He aided when they needed it many who afterwards rose to position and wealth, and these men became the most firmly attached of his supporters in his public career.
THE CHANDLER BLOCK.
Shortly after 1850 political affairs commenced to receive Mr. Chandler's attention, and he gradually entrusted more and more of the actual management of his large business to others, though he still for some years directed in a general way the operations of the house. He had been already absent one winter on a trip to the West Indies for his health, and had made a brief and not wholly satisfactory experiment (about 1846) at establishing a jobbing fancy-goods trade in New York. With these exceptions he had made his Detroit dry-goods business his personal charge. The firm name had generally been Z. Chandler & Co., although it was for some time Chandler & Bradford, and some of his relatives had been and were associated with him in business. From his second location he had moved his stock to more commodious quarters on the site now occupied by the Chandler Block, and in 1852 he again moved to the stores built jointly by himself and Mr. Baldwin on the southwest corner of Woodward avenue and Woodbridge street. In 1855, as outside matters commenced to press constantly upon Mr. Chandler's attention, there came into his employment as a clerk a young man of twenty-three from Kinderhook, N.Y., Allan Shelden. He showed an aptitude for business and a capacity for work that recalled to the head of the house his own earlier days, and Mr. Shelden's rise in his employer's confidence was rapid and permanent. On Feb. 1, 1857, just before Mr. Chandler took his seat as the successor of Lewis Cass in the Senate, the firm name was changed to Orr, Town & Smith, with Mr. Chandler as a special partner, with an interest of $50,000. In the fall of that year, it became Town, Smith & Shelden; in the fall of 1859 it was changed to Town & Shelden; on Feb. 1, 1866, it was again changed to the present name of Allan Shelden & Co. Three years later Mr. Chandler ceased to be a special partner, and thus finally sundered his formal connection with the business he had established. The mercantile pre-eminence in Michigan of his house in its line of trade has been maintained by his successors, and it now occupies the magnificent Chandler Block, built for its accommodation by its founder in 1878 on Jefferson avenue in Detroit. Mr. Shelden himself continued in confidential relations with his predecessor, and was entrusted in later years with the management of a large share of his private affairs.
During his active business life no Northwestern merchant surpassed Mr. Chandler in credit, in enterprise, or in success, and he left the counter and office of his store with wealth and with an unsullied mercantile character. His commercial integrity and sagacity always remained among his marked characteristics. He made profitable investments, became interested in remunerative enterprises, and, while he lived generously after his income warranted it, saw his riches steadily increase under prudent and shrewd management. At the time of his death, his estate which was absolutely unincumbered was roughly estimated as exceeding, at the least, two millions, representing valuable business property in Detroit, several farms, large tracts of timbered lands, the marsh farm at Lansing, residences in Washington and Detroit, bank stock, government and other securities, and investments in railroad and like enterprises. His business habits remained in full vigor to the last. He was punctuality itself in all appointments; he was rigid in his adherence to his engagements; he hated debt, and never permitted the second presentation of an account; he did business on business principles and with business exactitude; he spent money freely but knew where and for what it went; and always his counsel was sought and prized by men engaged in enterprises of the largest magnitude. Without being ostentatious or profuse in his charities he was a large giver, rarely refusing a meritorious application for aid, but he invariably satisfied himself that the object was worthy, and put a heartiness into his "no" when a refusal seemed to him to be in order.