Orange

CHANDLER, Albert Brown

Encyclopedia of Vermont Biography: A Series of Authentic Biographical 
Sketches of the Representative Men of Vermont and Sons of Vermont in Other 
States. Dodge. Burlington: Ullery Publishing Company, 1912, p 141-143. 
[Includes additional information from a second biography of the subject 
presented throughout the text in brackets, from Men of Vermont: Illustrated 
Biographical History of Vermonters & Sons of Vermont. Ullery. Brattleboro: 
Transcript Publishing Company, 1894, pages 32-34. Place name clarifications, 
also in brackets, added by submitter. Second biography not presented in its 
entirety due to length and repetition of information.]

Albert Brown CHANDLER, of Brooklyn [Kings County], New York, was born 20 
August 1840 in Randolph [Orange County, Vermont], youngest son of William 
BROWN and Electa (OWEN) CHANDLER. [Electa (OWEN) CHANDLER lived to be eighty 
years old.] William CHANDLER, the progenitor in America of the CHANDLER 
family, came to Roxbury [Suffolk County], Massachusetts, in 1637. From his 
three sons, William, Thomas, and John, were descended the New England 
branches of the family; the descendants including some of the most prominent 
men of their time. Among them were Sen. Zachariah CHANDLER, of Michigan [a 
descendent of William]; Sen. William E. CHANDLER, of New Hampshire [a 
descendant of Thomas], Commander Benjamin F. CHANDLER of the U. S. Navy [also 
a descendant of Thomas]; Professor Charles F. CHANDLER, of Columbia 
University; and the subject of this sketch [descended from John], who is also 
a descendant of John WINTHROP, the first governor of Massachusetts. [John 
WINTHROP was the founder of New London, and was also the first governor of 
Connecticut. The subject of this sketch was a descendant, in a direct line, 
of Mary WINTHROP, daughter of John WINTHROP.] 

Albert Brown CHANDLER was educated in the district school and in the academy 
of his native village, and spent his vacations in learning the arts of both 
printing and telegraphy. [There was a telegraph office located in a 
bookstore at West Randolph in connection with the printing office in which he 
worked, and this enabled him to acquire the art of telegraphy.] Mr. [Albert 
Brown] CHANDLER was married 11 October 1864 to Miss Marilla Eunice STEDMAN of 
West Randolph [Orange County, Vermont]. Three children were born to them, 
one daughter, Florence, dying in childhood, and two sons, Albert Eckert and 
Willis Derwin. His wife Marilla [Marilla (STEDMAN) CHANDLER] died in 
September 1907.

In December 1910 Mr. [Albert Brown] CHANDLER married Miss Mildred VIVIAN of 
New York City, a member of a most favorably known family of the South, who 
came to New York from Kansas City [Jackson County, Missouri] in 1907. Mr. 
CHANDLER was appointed manager of the Western Union telegraph office at 
Bellaire [Belmont County], Ohio, in 1858; in 1859 agent of the Cleveland & 
Pittsburgh Railroad at Manchester, opposite Pittsburgh, remaining until May 
1863, when he was assigned [01 June 1863] to duty as cipher telegraph 
operator in the War Department at Washington [D. C.], becoming one of the 
confidential telegraph operators of President LINCOLN and Secretary STANTON. 
In October 1868, in addition to these duties, he [Mr. CHANDLER] was made 
disbursing clerk for General Thomas T. ECKERT, superintendent of Military 
Telegraph in the Department of the Potomac, visiting the armies in the field 
and becoming personally acquainted with principal military officers of the 
government. 

In August 1866, before the general consolidation of the several telegraph 
interests in the U. S. into one company had become fully organized, Albert 
Brown CHANDLER was made chief clerk in the office of General Superintendent 
of the Eastern Division and placed in charge of the transatlantic and Cuba 
cable traffic, which had just been inaugurated. In addition to these duties, 
he was, 10 June 1869, appointed superintendent of the Sixth District of the 
Eastern Division, and continued in these several positions until January 
1875, when he accepted the position of assistant general manager of the 
Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, of which Gen. ECKERT had lately 
become president and general manager. He was subsequently appointed, 
successively, secretary, treasurer, director, and vice president of that 
company, and in December 1879, he succeeded Gen. ECKERT as president. After 
that company was combined with the Western Union Company in 1881, he accepted 
the presidency of the Fuller Electric Company, which was among the first to 
develop the arc system of electric lighting, remaining actively in that 
position until May 1884. 

In December 1884 Mr. CHANDLER became counsel for the Postal Telegraph and 
Cable Company, and in June 1865 he was appointed receiver of the property of 
that company. Through his efforts the company was reorganized, and early in 
1886 he became its president and general manager, and also a member of the 
board of directors and of the executive committee and a vice president of the 
Commercial Cable Company. After the construction of the Pacific Coast lines, 
he was made acting president of the Pacific Postal Telegraph Company, of 
which Mr. John W. MACKAY was president. In March 1887 he [Mr. CHANDLER] was 
elected a director, and soon after president, of the Commercial Telegraph 
Company. While under his management the property of this company was 
acquired by the Stock Exchange in 1890, and Mr. CHANDLER has ever since 
continued in charge of its operation under the direction of the Exchange. 
Was a member of the board of directors of the Brooklyn District Telegraph 
Company and president of that company during the first three years of its 
existence. The large and commodious building of the Postal Telegraph Company 
at Broadway and Murray Street, New York, was erected under the supervision of 
Mr. CHANDLER, and has become a well-established center of telegraphic 
communication. 

[Mr. CHANDLER selected the site for the Postal Telegraph Company building, 
conducted the negotiations which secured it, was chairman of the committee 
which had charge of its construction and which now controls it. The building 
is limestone, gray brick and terra cotta, fourteen stories and a basement, 
and is recognized as one of the handsomest, as well as most commodious, 
well-appointed and well-lighted office buildings in the world. The steam and 
electrical machinery are of most recent design, and are so extensive and 
complete as to command the admiration of experts and scientists as well as 
less skillful critics. The value of land and building is about two and a half 
millions of dollars.] 

After forty-five years of active service, by his own wish, Mr. CHANDLER 
retired from the presidency of the company, which Mr. John W. MACKAY then 
assumed, requesting that Mr. CHANDLER continue in close relations with him as 
chairman of the board of directors, which position he has ever since 
continued to occupy. He is a member of the board of directors of the Otis 
Elevator Company. He served as colonel and A. D. C. on the military staffs 
of Govs. WOODBURY and GROUT of Vermont for four years, 1895 to 1898, 
inclusive. It has been said of him that he is a man of infinite patience and 
pains; that in every relation he has proved himself more than equal to the 
duties assigned him, honoring every trust by conscientious assiduity, and by 
the unfailing politeness, fidelity, and thoughtfulness with which he 
administered it; and that when he withdrew from active management of the 
Postal System he had the gratification of knowing that he was the only man 
who had ever built up a comprehensive and successful competitive system of 
telegraphs in the U. S. 

On 16 May 1896, at the National Electrical Exposition in New York, Albert 
Brown CHANDLER sent a telegraph message, written by Hon. Chauncey M. DEPEW, a 
distance of 16,000 miles around the world, which was received and transcribed 
by Thomas A. EDISON in New York, four minutes later, the entire circuit being 
composed of wires and cables belonging to the Postal Telegraph-Commercial 
Cable system. Elbert HUBBARD must have had Col. CHANDLER in mind when he 
wrote "Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them; and 
power flows to the man who knows how." In political convictions Col. 
CHANDLER is a Republican. He has been a member of the Lafayette Avenue 
Presbyterian Church (known as Dr. CUYLER's) in Brooklyn since January 1869, 
and is an attendant of Bethany Congregational Church in Randolph [Orange 
County, Vermont], in aid of which he gave, in 1907, Chandler Music Hall, 
which, with its adjoining Parish House, is one of the finest structures of 
the kind in New England. 

A full sketch of the life of Mr. CHANDLER would form an interesting chapter 
in the history of telegraphy in the U. S. He is classed among telegraph 
people as one of its pioneers, having devoted more than fifty years of 
continuous service to that profession, occupied nearly every official position 
pertaining to it, been personally acquainted with nearly all the principal 
promoters, inventors, and officers who have brought that business to its 
present position of prime importance in the affairs of the world, and has 
participated in some the most important movements in the transmission of 
messages of public interest, the development of business and in its 
organization, operation, and expansion.

[Mr. CHANDLER is a lover of music and literature, cultivating his tastes 
quite freely in both these directions. He wields a ready pen in literary and 
historical work, and among his diversions has been the preparation of a 
genealogical record of his family that would do credit to a professional 
searcher. One of his peculiar faculties is a remarkable memory for names, 
faces and dates, and this, with his ease in conversation, his wide range of 
information and his companionable ways, makes him a very interesting man to 
meet and to know.]

Submitted by Cathy Kubly