Hi Listers, this is a multi-list posting.
I wrote this article for our local genealogical newsletter and for the SC
Genealogical Society Quarterly.
My research into Alice Cornelia Ingersoll has left many questions. I would
really like to know if there are any surviving descendants. I would like to
know the death dates and burial places of the children. I would also like to
know where Alice and Daniel are buried.
Thanks for any help anyone can give me.
Geraldine Ingersoll
BEHIND THE SCENES...IN RECONSTRUCTION SC...
Alice Cornelia Ingersoll Chamberlain
South Carolina’s Last Reconstruction Governor’s First Lady
By Geraldine “Jay” Ingersoll
Finding a distant Ingersoll cousin in Helen Milliken’s recently published
book, BEHIND THE SCENES, Sketches of Select South Carolina First Ladies, was
a huge surprise. Researching the South Carolina life and times of cousin
Alice Ingersoll Chamberlain and her husband Governor Daniel Henry Chamberlain
proved to be even more surprising, partly because of the realization that
Chamberlain was South Carolina’s last Reconstruction governor. In her
book, Helen Milliken illustrates the Chamberlains’ tenure with a lovely
picture of the Boylston House, a section of the iron fence, the caption, “One
of their lasting contributions was a new iron fence around the mansion
grounds.” This also illustrates the controversial nature of Chamberlain’s
governorship, as
well as the dearth of information on Alice Ingersoll.
In her narrative about the Chamberlains, Ms. Milliken says in
part, “The couple moved to Columbia...where Chamberlain practiced law
and became a member of the S.C. constitutional convention... Chamberlain
served as attorney general of S.C. from 1868-72 and was elected governor
in 1874.
Gov. Chamberlain earned a reputation as a noted reformer of state
politics partly because he had the luxery-he was independently wealthy.
After he was elected, the Chamberlains decided not to occupy the
Governor’s Mansion because the building needed major repairs: it had
previously been a military academy and was burned during Sherman’s
march to the sea. The Chamberlains instead bought and lived in the
Boylston House which was directly across the street from the mansion...
In 1876, Gov. Chamberlain was re-nominated by Republicans to face
Democratic nominee Wade Hampton. Chamberlain won the election, but Democrats
challenged the election results, established a rival government, and
inaugurated Hampton. Both governors claimed authority until April 1877 when,
as part of the Compromise of 1877, Pres. Rutherford Hayes withdrew federal
troops from South Carolina and deprived Chamberlain of his source of power.
Chamberlain was forced to leave office and the family eventually left South
Carolina as well...”
Getting information on this little known First Lady was not an easy task,
as Helen Milliken, researcher for the book, Behind the Scenes: Sketches of
Selected South Carolina First Ladies, can attest. Alice was a South Carolina
resident only from the time of her marriage to Daniel Henry Chamberlain in
December of 1869, until the beginning of his second term (contested) as
Governor of South Carolina in 1877. Much has been documented about Daniel,
but who was Alice Cornelia Ingersoll? What was her background and who were
her people?
Alice Ingersoll was born May 10, 1846, in Maine (likely Bangor) to George
Washington and Henrietta Crosby Ingersoll. Her father was a noted attorney
and state legislator, who had just been elected Attorney General of Maine in
1860, when he died of pneumonia at age 56. Her grandfather, Nathaniel
Ingersoll, was a founder of New Gloucester, Maine, and served as a private in
the Revolutionary War. Her granduncle, Zebulon Ingersoll, was a Colonel in
the Continental Army. Her grandaunt, Rebecca Ingersoll Foster’s wedding
silver was made by Paul Revere. Alice and her people were somebody.
When their father died, Alice was 13 and her brother, Edward Chase, was
16. Edward went to college soon after, graduating from his father’s alma
mater, Bowdoin, in 1864. What Alice did from age thirteen until her marriage
to Daniel Chamberlain when she was 23, is unknown. It might be presumed that
her life was similar to the lives of other young women from prominent,
well-to-do families; learning and honing the skills required for marriage to
a prominent, well-to-do man. Daniel Chamberlain was finishing Yale and
attending Harvard Law School between 1857 and 1863. He left Harvard in 1863
to serve as an officer with the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry, a black
regiment.
In 1866, Daniel came to South Carolina “to tend to the affairs of a
deceased classmate.” He stayed and practiced law in Charleston, entering
South Carolina politics in 1868 as a delegate to the state Constitutional
Convention from Berkeley District.
Alice and Daniel were married during his 1868-1872 tenure as South
Carolina’s Attorney General. It is very likely that the Ingersoll and
Chamberlain families had at least some prior association, and that Alice and
Daniel had known each other for some time.
By early 1870, Alice and Daniel were both living in South Carolina. Less
than a year later their first child, Henry Ingersoll, was born. Henry lived
for three days. The couple’s second child, Julian Ingersoll, was born in
1872, the same year his father, failing to gain the Republican nomination for
governor, again practiced law in Charleston. Daniel was elected to the board
of trustees of the University of South Carolina 1873.
In 1874, Daniel became the Republican candidate for governor and, shortly
after their third child, Huyley, was born, won the general election. It was
during this time that the Chamberlains decided against living in the badly
damaged Governor’s Mansion, instead purchasing and occupying the Boylston
House across the street. Philip Chamberlain was born there on November 28,
1876, in the midst of the pivotal and contested election of his father to a
second term as Governor of South Carolina.
Both the Democrats and Republicans claimed victory in the 1876 election,
and a prolonged controversy followed. For a time, contender Wade Hampton and
incumbent Daniel Chamberlain each insisted that he was the state's chief
executive. But in April, 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes, as part of the
Compromise of 1877, withdrew federal troops from South Carolina and deprived
Chamberlain of his source of power. Daniel Chamberlain was forced to leave
office, and the family left South Carolina shortly after.
It is not difficult to imagine what Alice Chamberlain’s life was like
during her years in South Carolina. She was either pregnant or had a babe
in arms, servants not withstanding. Her husband was a prominent, political
figure during the most politically disruptive, tumultuous and dangerous
years in the state’s history. Alice, no doubt, was responsible for running
the Governor’s household, planning and presiding over, or participating in,
the many functions required of the state’s First Lady, even during
Reconstruction.
After the Chamberlains left South Carolina, Daniel became a successful
Wall Street lawyer. It was during this time that four year old Huyley died
(January 21, 1879). The family is not to be found anywhere in the 1880
Federal Census. It is very likely that they spent some time abroad after
Huley’s death. From 1883 until 1897, Daniel was a professor of constitutional
law at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Their son, Paul Crosby, was
born there on December 18, 1883, six days before Alice’s brother, Edward
Chase Ingersoll, died in Washington, D.C.
Alice Cornelia Ingersoll Chamberlain died in 1887, barely two years after
their son, Waldo Emerson, was born. She was forty. If all of her children
survived her except Henry Ingersoll and Huyley, Alice’s death left
motherless, four young sons, ages 15, 11, 4 and 2.
The following testimony is taken from, Behind the Scenes: Sketches of
Selected South Carolina First Ladies. In a memoir of Chamberlain, lifelong
friend James Green said his wife’s loss was devastating to the former
governor. Mrs. Chamberlain was his “most trusted companion and most
sympathetic friend. This loss to him was irreparable and saddened all his
later years.” and in an 1888 account of the Chamberlain administration, the
author dedicated the book to Mrs. Chamberlain “whose early wedded life was
both shadowed and exalted herein...whose faithful interest preserved
important parts of this record; whose wifely counsel and sympathy made her a
large sharer in all that was achieved and all that was endured by her husband
while governor.”
Alice Ingersoll Chamberlain was first defined by her father and then by
her husband. She was also defined by the tragic and untimely deaths of her
father, her brother, and at least two of her children. In all, Alice presents
a brave, tragic and sympathetic figure. She was very much a woman of her time.
When Daniel Henry Chamberlain retired in 1897, he “...traveled
extensively in Europe before settling in Charlottesville, Virginia.” There he
died of cancer on April 13, 1907. He was 73.
SOURCES:
_A GENEALOGY OF THE INGERSOLL FAMILY IN AMERICA 1629-1925, by Lillian Drake
Avery. Published by Frederick H. Hitchcock, The Grafton Press, Genealogical
Publishers, New York, 1926,
_BEHIND THE SCENES Sketches of Selected South Carolina Ladies, page 50,
researched by Helen Milliken. Copyright 2001, Heritage Information Fund
Press/The Palmetto Trust for Historic Preservation and Palmetto Conservation
Foundation.
_The South Carolina Encyclopedia at <
http://ww
w.schumanities.org/encyclopedia/chamberlain.ht
m> , edited by Dr. Walter Edgar. A joint effort by The Humanities Council of
SC, the USC Institute for Southern Studies, and the University of South
Carolina Press.
Geraldine Ingersoll was born in California, but has been a resident of South
Carolina most of her life. She has been a school teacher, an elementary
school principal and a small business owner. Geraldine serves on the board of
directors of The Boone Society, Inc., and is membership committee chair of
that organization. She is a board member, recording secretary, newsletter
editor and Web site editor of the Sumter County Chapter of the South Carolina
Genealogical Society. Geraldine belongs to numerous other historical and
genealogical organizations.
She can be reached at gfjay(a)aol.com