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Chambers' story began in October of 1665, when he met Henry Smith in the British
port city of Bristol and agreed upon a four-year length of indentured servitude in Virginia.
As part of the terms of indenture, the forward-thinking Chambers stipulated that that he be
able to either work for himself on Saturdays or be paid five pounds sterling annually if the
former condition could not be met.[1] He also received Smith's agreement that he would be
given a bellows, anvil, and vice at the end of the duration of his service.[2] After these
conditions had been agreed upon, Smith transported him to Virginia, claiming his headright
and putting him to work at his home in Accomack County.[3]
With what originally appeared to be a good set of circumstances for his period of indenture
and later independent settlement as a craftsman, Chambers must have experienced disappointment
and regret upon becoming familiar with the temperament and behavior of his new master. Smith
consistently treated his servants in a cruelly abusive and negligent manner, a habit that
resulted in the death of at least one servant. Chambers and his servant peers were left to
appeal to the Accomack County courts for humane treatment, testifying to Smith's abuses of
both themselves and his own family members.[4]
Along with this general mistreatment and poor conditions, Smith offered further injury
by declining to honor the initial terms of Chambers' indenture. Smith denied him the right
to work for his own gain on Saturdays, refused to release him from service after the four-year
period had expired, and withheld the blacksmith's tools.[5] In a display of determination to
protect his future interests, Chambers turned to the legal system for aid. In all three cases
the court ruled in his favor, going so far as to send the sheriff to seize the promised tools
from Smith's keeping.[6]
When eventually threatened with imprisonment in Virginia, Smith diverted his assets to
Maryland and relocated to Somerset County.[7] In a mysterious contradiction of the previous
conditions and circumstances in Accomack County, Chambers accompanied Smith to Maryland,
where the latter claimed the former's headright for a second time.[8] While the two continued
to cross paths and contend with one another in the Somerset County courts until--and even
after--Smith's death, the twenty-five-year-old Chambers was a free man in Maryland, able to
pursue his own livelihood and success.[9]
Between the years of 1672 and 1723, Chambers bought and patented several land tracts in
the Manokin region of Somerset County, establishing a plantation and eventually accumulating
approximately 1,000 acres of land.[10] In May of 1676, he married Mary Ivory/Ivery, a woman who
had been born in Accomack County and who had moved to Somerset County in 1663.[11] She died prior
to the writing of Chambers' will in 1726, leaving his estate to be divided among his four
remaining children and two grandchildren.[12] One of his daughters, Mary, married into the
Brereton family and produced two heirs by 1726.[13] Another daughter, Olive, appears to have
remained unmarried.[14] His only son, Richard Jr., was unsuccessful in establishing a family
and producing heirs, leaving his estate to be divided among several cousins.[15]
While Chambers was recognized as a blacksmith and a planter, he was also involved in the
legal and civic aspects of the Somerset County community.[16] He served as a juror and
occasional foreman of a jury in several cases involving economic and criminal suits, acted
as an appraiser for an inventory, administered the debts and goods of a deceased friend or
community member, and took the role of attorney in the sale of a property for another.[17]
He also served as an Overseer of the Roads for the Manokin Hundred district and received
payment for participating in an expedition against the Nanticoke Indians in 1678.[18]
Chambers signed an address of loyalty to King William, Queen Mary, and the Protestant
religion in 1689. He was also selected to serve as a vestryman for Somerset
Parish when it was established under the terms of the Church of England's 1692
Act of Assembly. Along with serving as a vestryman and signing the loyalty
address, he also acted as a juror in at least two cases involving moral crimes,
making it clear that he saw value in participating in the religious concerns of
the community.[19]
He lived to be approximately 84 years old, dying sometime before December of 1728.[20] The
possessions he left behind did not reveal a household equipped with many luxuries, with most
of the furniture, household items, and livestock in his estate being described by appraisers
as "old."[21] Yet when taken as a whole, the items and experiences that he accumulated
through the span of his life tell a story of overall success.
Chambers started as an indentured servant, surviving the abuse and exploitation of a
notoriously cruel master and using the law to fight for his personal well-being and
interests. After settling as a free man in Maryland, he managed to negotiate the
economic, political, religious, and environmental challenges of late seventeenth- and
early eighteenth-century life on the Eastern Shore to establish a family, acquire land holdings, and serve as an active member of the local community. Through these activities, he earned enough respect to permit his daughter to marry into a prominent family and established the means to provide foundations of security for his other children.
Yet of all of Chambers' properties and possessions, it is perhaps the humble anvil and blacksmith tools found in his home after his death that offer the most poignant and relevant commentary on his legacy. While they may not have been the same tools that the Accomack County sheriff had confiscated on his behalf almost sixty years prior to his death, they stand as symbolic reminders of his modest beginnings and personal determination, qualities that define and embody what we think of as the frontier spirit of the colonial Eastern Shore.
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2 Accomack County Orders, 1666-1670, Accomack County Courthouse, Accomack, Virginia (microfilm, Reel #78, 107, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
3 Accomack County Orders, 1666-1670, Accomack County Courthouse, Accomack, Virginia (microfilm, Reel #78, 36b, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
4 Accomack County Orders, 1666-1670, Accomack County Courthouse, Accomack, Virginia (microfilm, Reel #78, 67-75, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
See also Reel #78, pp 80-88, 110-114,128-137.
5 Accomack County Orders, 1666-1670, Accomack County Courthouse, Accomack, Virginia (microfilm, Reel #78, 148-149, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
Accomack County Orders, 1666-1670, Accomack County Courthouse, Accomack, Virginia (microfilm, Reel #78, 169, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
See also Reel #78, p 128.
6 Accomack County Orders, 1666-1670, Accomack County Courthouse, Accomack, Virginia (microfilm, Reel #78, 187, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
7 Accomack County Orders, 1666-1670, Accomack County Courthouse, Accomack, Virginia (microfilm, Reel #78, 123-127, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
8 Somerset County Land Office, Patent Record, 1670-1673, 16, 40 (microfilm, SR7357, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
9 Atwood S. Barwick, trans., Archives of Maryland Online: Somerset County Judicial Records, 1671-1675 [database on-line] (Lakeville, CT: Maryland State Archives, 1999, accessed 24 February 2004); available from http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/; 86:51, 87:290, 86:63-64, 24:423-424.
10 Somerset County Land Office, Patent Record, 1679-1683, 24, 366 (microfilm, WK26-1, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
Somerset County Land Office, Patent Record, 1679-1683, 24, 315 (microfilm, WK26-1, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
Somerset County Land Office, Patent Record, 1682-1688, 25, 382 (microfilm, WK26-2, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
Somerset County Land Office, Patent Record, 1682-1688, 25, 418 (microfilm, WK26-2, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
Somerset County Land Office, Patent Record, 1724-1728, PL6, 197 (microfilm, SR7465, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
Atwood S. Barwick, trans., Archives of Maryland Online: Somerset County Judicial Records, 1671-1675 [database on-line] (Lakeville, CT: Maryland State Archives, 1999, accessed 24 February 2004); available from http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/; 87:496.
11 Somerset County Land Records, 1649-1720, I.K.L., 33, Clerk of Court, Somerset County Courthouse, Princess Anne, Maryland (microfilm, CR 50,078, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
Somerset County Land Office, Patent Record, 1661-1664, 5, 210 (microfilm, SR7347, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
12 Richard Chambers, Maryland Prerogative Court Wills, 1726-1760, 19, 548 (microfilm, SR4413, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
13 Richard Chambers, Maryland Prerogative Court Wills, 1726-1760, 19, 548 (microfilm, SR4413, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
14 Rebecca F. Miller, Abstracts of Commissions and Affidavits: Judicial Records 1717-1767 (Princess Anne: Miller's Choice Genealogy, 1994), 6.
15 Richard Chambers [Jr.], Maryland Prerogative Court Wills, 1743-1744, 23, 343 (microfilm, SR4417, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
16 Atwood S. Barwick, trans., Archives of Maryland Online: Somerset County Judicial Records, 1692-1696 [database on-line] (Lakeville, CT: Maryland State Archives, 1999, accessed 24 February 2004); available from http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/; 535:66, 405:228
Somerset County Land Records, 1706-1715, CD, 381, Clerk of Court, Somerset County Courthouse, Princess Anne, Maryland (microfilm, CR 31,806, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
17 Atwood S. Barwick, trans., Archives of Maryland Online: Somerset County Judicial Records, 1692-1696 [database on-line] (Lakeville, CT: Maryland State Archives, 1999, accessed 24 February 2004); available from http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/; 87:106, 87:151-152, 87:448, 87:286, 87:412-413, 87:395, 89:48, 89:105, 535:66, 535:127, 405:158.
Somerset County Land Records, 1722-1726, GH, 192, Clerk of Court, Somerset County Courthouse, Princess Anne, Maryland (microfilm, CR 41,369, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
18 Atwood S. Barwick, trans., Archives of Maryland Online: Somerset County Judicial Records, 1692-1696 [database on-line] (Lakeville, CT: Maryland State Archives, 1999, accessed 24 February 2004); available from http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/; 191:15, 7:100.
19 Henry C. Peden Jr., M.A., Colonial Maryland Soldiers and Sailors 1634-1734 (Westminster: Willow Bend Books, 2001), 61-62.
Atwood S. Barwick, trans., Archives of Maryland Online: Somerset County Judicial Records, 1692-1696 [database on-line] (Lakeville, CT: Maryland State Archives, 1999, accessed 24 February 2004); available from http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/; 8:139-141, 23:22.
Mary Klein, "Mission on the Manokin: 1681-1698" in Of Ancient and Apostolic Lineage: Somerset Parish 1692-1992, Alice Mae Beauchamp and others (Princess Anne: Arcadia Publications, 1999), 1-5.
Clayton Torrence, Old Somerset on the Eastern Shore of Maryland (Baltimore: Regional Publishing Company, 1966), 150-155.
Atwood S. Barwick, trans., Archives of Maryland Online: Somerset County Judicial Records, 1692-1696 [database on-line] (Lakeville, CT: Maryland State Archives, 1999, accessed 24 February 2004); available from http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/; 405:134, 191:39-42.
20 Rebecca F. Miller, Abstracts of Commissions and Affidavits: Judicial Records 1717-1767 (Princess Anne: Miller's Choice Genealogy, 1994), 6.
Richard Chambers, Maryland Prerogative Court Inventories, 1729-1730, 15, 252-254 (microfilm, SR4333, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
Also see Accomack County Orders, 1666-1670, for depositions with ages.
21 Richard Chambers, Maryland Prerogative Court Inventories, 1729-1730, 15, 252-254 (microfilm, SR4333, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland).
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