Our subject was born in Buffalo, N. Y., January 16, 1820, a son of Sylvester Chamberlain, a native of Columbia County, N. Y., whose father, Jonathan Chamberlain, was born of English parentage near Springfield, Mass., and was an early settler of Columbia County. The grandfather engaged in farming in Austerlitz, on the Green River, where he reared his family. His ancestry were noted for their integrity, simplicity and deep religious principles, and these he inherited to a large degree.

The father of our subject was reared on a farm, but while young learned the trade of a blacksmith. He enlisted in the militia and served in the War of 1812, on the Niagara frontier, under Gen. Scott. He was well pleased with the country there, and soon after his discharge returned home and made arrangements for moving to Western New York, and located in Buffalo. He established himself as a blacksmith there, and worked at the forge until he had to retire on account of an injury he had received. He then engaged in the manufacture of wagons and carriages, was one of the first manufacturers of vehicles in that city, and was also among the largest in his day. His homestead was on the corner of Pearl and Mohawk Streets. He was quite a local politician, was a Whig in his views and worked towards Republicanism. The maiden name of his wife was Hannah Miller, and she was born in Franklin, N. Y. She was a Presbyterian in religion, and died in Buffalo. Her father was a farmer. Her mother’s maiden name was Sherrill.

The parents of our subject had nine children, of whom the following is recorded: Hunting S., a manufacturer, died in Buffalo; Theresa died in Chicago; William H. H., a manufacturer, died in Milwaukee; Horace, who was Captain of a Texas company in the Texas Rebellion, under Gen. Houston, died in Texas a few years after from the effects of a sword wound in the eye; Jonathan is a retired manufacturer of Buffalo; the next in our is our subject, Jacob Sherrill; Maria, residing in Washington, is the widow of Mr. Rucker; Samuel Miller, who was an attorney and a member of the editorial profession, was editor of the New York Times, one year, and editor of the Buffalo Morning Express for twenty-five or thirty years, and died in that city; Edward O., a mechanic of Buffalo, served in the late war.

The Rev. Mr. Chamberlain, of this sketch, was reared in his native county, and received good school advantages for that day. When he was fourteen years old he entered Fredonia Academy, in Chautauqua County, and studied there three years to prepare himself for college, but on account of his father’s failure in business, he had to give up the idea of entering college, and he then began the study of law in Buffalo under Stevens & Wing, and later with Judge Rodgers. In 1839, when nineteen years old, he went to Chicago, and in that then small village finished his legal studies under the tuition of Butterfield & Collins, and was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1840. He first established himself as a practitioner of the law in Chicago in partnership with Col. Hamilton, and later continued in practice by himself until 1845. In the meantime he had united with the Protestant Episcopal Church, and with religious zeal had determined to enter the ministry, and came to Jubilee College to prepare himself. He entered the college and seminary in the spring of 1845, and was graduated in the spring of 1847 with the degree of A. B. He was immediately ordained and became a missionary for this region, and traveled in Woodford, Tazewell and Peoria Counties in pursuit of his calling, organizing congregations and building churches. In 1849 he located in Peoria, secured the present site of the St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church, and built the first St. Paul’s Church, and for three years acted in the double capacity of pastor for its congregation and a missionary. At the expiration of that time, after the parish had been well organized and the church had been built, he went to Pekin and other places in Woodford, Tazewell and other counties, and did missionary work, while he left his family in Peoria. At that time he received little or no salary and had to support himself, and in order to do so engaged in teaching a select school. He started at that time a girls’ school in the old Moss mansion, on the bluff, under the name of “St. Mary’s School.”

In 1852 our subject went to Minnesota, and began missionary work there. His mission was known as “St. Anthony’s Falls Church Mission,” in which he was actively engaged for eleven years, and during that time he traveled in the interests of his mission many miles, his circuit extending over one hundred miles, from Chaska, on the Minnesota, to Sauk Rapids, on the Mississippi. For several years he traveled on foot, and then by vehicles. He built thirteen Episcopal Churches within the one hundred miles, and remained in Minnesota until the spring of 1864, when he came back to Jubilee Township. He had then just recovered from a siege of the smallpox. He had left his family at the “Robin’s Nest,” and as soon as he was well enough he went to Washington, D. C., where he was employed by the Government in the Treasury Department until the winter of 1864. He was acquainted with Abraham Lincoln, and attended many of his receptions, and heard him tell many of his famous stories, which he has remembered and treasured up for years.

In the winter of 1864, Mr. Chamberlain received the appointment from President Lincoln as Chaplain of Nelson general hospital, Camp Nelson, Ky. He proceeded to that place, reported for duty, received his commission and went to work with a will. He was mustered out in July, 1865, at Louisville, Ky., and returned to Jubilee by the way of Chicago. He resumed his old work as missionary in the Illinois diocese, and was thus engaged in Knox, Mercer and Rock Island Counties. He was the founder of St. Mary’s School, in Knoxville, he procuring the site and property and securing the services of Dr. Leffengwell as its head, going to Wisconsin to persuade the doctor to undertake the charge, and contracting with him to teach the first five years. The school progressed well, was a success from the start, and is to-day a fine institution. In 1882 Mr. Chamberlain received a call from Wichita, Kan., and was pastor of the church there for two years. At the expiration of that time he was appointed Superintendent of Christ Hospital, at Topeka, and he directed its organization and was very busily engaged in that for more than three years.

In September, 1887, our subject retired from the duties of that onerous position on account of ill-health, and for a year lived retired in Jubilee. He then accepted the position of Rector of Jubilee Chapel, his predecessor having resigned at the beginning of 1889, and is devoting his energies to carrying on its work. He is also Missionary Rector of Grace Church, Mercer County, which he established years ago. He has led a very active life, and has seldom had less than five or six congregations under his charge, and has built twenty churches, and organized a still larger number and has otherwise greatly advanced the cause of religion in various places. He is a member of the Free and Accepted Masons lodge at Cambridge, and in his political views is a stanch Republican.

Our subject has been twice married. In 1843 he was united to Sarah E. Hyde, who was born at Darien, Genesee County, N. Y. She died after thirteen months of married life. Our subject’s marriage with Miss Mary Chase, only daughter of Bishop Philander Chase, D. D., was solemnized April 14, 1847. To them have been born six children, of whom the following is recorded: Sherrill, a well-to-do farmer in Harper County, Kan., attended Racine College two years; Philander C., who attended Hobart College for three years, is now staff correspondent and distributor of the Topeka Daily Capital, having been engaged on that paper for over eleven years, since it started, he taking the first impression of the paper from the press; Ernest, who is engaged in general farming and stock-raising on the home farm, is the naturalist of the family, and has the finest and largest collection of Illinois birds’ eggs in the State; Ruth, a graduate of St. Mary’s, of Knoxville, is the wife of John C. Lewis, a farmer of Warren County; Grace, who resides with her father, was for three years ward matron of Christ Hospital, Topeka; Mary C. is the wife of Mr. Clark, of Champaign, Ill., where he is taking a mechanical engineer’s course at the State University.

Mrs. Chamberlain was educated at Jubilee College in the same classes with her husband. She has devoted herself to teaching some in the vicinity and some in Peoria, and as a lady of culture and marked ability has been a great help to her husband in his work. Her father, Bishop Chase, was one of the foremost educators and ministers of his day in the West. He was a native of Cornish, N. H., and was graduated from Dartmouth College in the class of 1796. He studied theology under the Episcopal Church Rector at Albany, N. Y., and became a Doctor of Divinity. He was a Missionary in that State until he was chosen Rector of Christ’s church in Hartford, Conn., which position he occupied a long time. He then acted as Rector of Christ’s Church at New Orleans, La., for some years. After that he came North to Worthington, Ohio, where he was elected Bishop of the Diocese of that State. He was the founder of Kenyon College, at Gambier, Ohio, and was at its head, until he resigned to go to Michigan. Going to Michigan he bought a large tract of land in Gilead, Branch County, where he farmed and did missionary work. In 1835 he was elected Bishop of the Diocese of Illinois, and in 1836 he came to Jubilee. He had received funds from the friends of the Protestant Episcopal Church in England and America from which to found an institution of learning, and he selected a site on section 25, in this township, and as soon as possible laid the foundation of the school, laying the corner stone of the chapel of the institution which he called Jubilee College (from which the township afterward received its name) April 3, 1839. He also selected a site for his own home and private property, located on north-half of section 36, where he built the “Robin’s Nest,” afterward erecting a brick residence, which still bears the name. This property now contains one hundred and ninety acres of land, located on the Kickapoo, and is a fine farm, containing all the necessary conveniences. It is located in a picturesque and beautiful spot, and is a lovely place. The Bishop in his “Reminiscences” called it the “Robin’s Nest” because it was then “a rude dwelling built of mud and sticks and filled with young ones.” This beautiful property was inherited by the wife of our subject, and they make it their home. By his personal influence the Bishop secured the establishment of a post-office here, which was named “Robin’s Nest,” and retained that name until some two years ago, when it was changed to its present title of Jubilee, and he was appointed first Postmaster.

By his energy and good management Bishop Chase established a college in the wilderness, which was at that time one of the foremost institutions of learning in the West, as to the number of students in attendance and in regard to its endowments and future prospects. At the time of his death the buildings had been erected, and he had secured over twelve hundred acres of land, in Jubilee Township, free from incumbrance and one-half under the plow. The institution was planned to be largely supported by the rents of its agricultural lands, occupied by an Episcopal colony. The trustees of Jubilee College were appointed by Bishop Chase’s will, according to the conditions of the charter which he had procured from the Legislature of the State. After the Bishop’s death, the administration fell into the hands of Dr. Samuel Chase, great nephew of the Bishop, and Vice-President. Dr. Chase kept the college open for a time, but during the war, like many other institutions of the kind at that time, it failed to receive sufficient support, many of the pupils enlisting in the army, and in the second year it was closed, as the Vice-President was appointed Chaplain of the Twelfth Illinois Regiment. The Bishop had established a printing office at Jubilee, and did all the printing in connection with the institution, and the publishing of a monthly paper, “The Motto of Jubilee College.” He had everything in fine order and the institution established on a solid financial basis, when he met his death accidentally while out driving, on September 20, 1852, in his seventy-sixth years. Peoria County then lost one of its most learned and most respected citizens.

Mrs. Chamberlain’s mother’s maiden name was Sophia May Ingraham, and she was born at Amsterdam, Holland, where her parents were visiting. Her mother was a Greenleaf, of Boston, a very prominent family, and the Ingrahams were also of the best people. She was a remarkable and noble character, was well educated and was of great assistance to the Bishop in his work. “She was a perfect woman,” said one who knew her well. She was loved by all, and her death in the fall of 1864 of paralysis, at the “Robin’s Nest,” was greatly mourned. The Bishop had been twice married. But one is living of the three children born of his first marriage, the Rev. Dudley Chase, who is now retired Past Chaplain of the United States Army, living in Philadelphia, Pa. there were three children of the second union, namely: Henry I., a resident of Riverside, Chicago, and inventor of the “Chase Elevator;” Mary, wife of our subject, and the Rev. Philander Chase, Jr., who died in Stark County, this State.

Pages 352-355