Tuolumne County Biographies

JUDGE C. H. CHAMBERLAIN

Submitted by: Nancy Pratt Melton

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 
The above gentleman, now Receiver in the United States Land Office at San 
Francisco, lived in Columbia in early years, when that town was one of the 
liveliest camps of which the mines of California could boast.
The Judge was born in the State of Maine, coming thence in the Summer of 1849.  
He mined for a time on the Mo�kelumne River, going in October of that year to 
Monte�zuma, Tuolumne County.  In the Spring of 1850 he worked in Soldiers� 
Gulch, near Tuttletown, and still later at Dusty Bar and Grand Bar, on the 
Stanislaus River, and at Little Garrote.  In the year 1851 he was at Tuttletown, 
mining as before, and went in the Fall of that year to Co�lumbia.  His residence 
in the latter place was a fact of importance to the community at large, his 
public and pri�vate acts identifying him with the highest interests of the town. 
 Concluding his residence in Columbia, he went in 1857 to San Joaquin County, 
where, in that year, he be�came Whig candidate for the State Senatorship, 
against J. M. Mandeville.  His public service in Columbia embraced three years 
as Justice of the Peace, which office he held with honor and credit.  In 1861 
the Judge became State Senator, and in 1865 Assemblyman.  In the Fall of 1866 he 
was appointed to his present position in the Land Office, by President Johnson, 
and has been reappointed to that situation by Presidents Grant and Hayes, having 
served sixteen years in all.
Judge Chamberlain now resides in his pleasant home in Oakland, with his wife, 
nee Miss Susan G. Wilson, also a native of Maine, and who has been previously 
mentioned as having taught the first school ever established in Colum�bia.  The 
pair have one son, Colonel William H. Cham�berlain, of the National Guards of 
the State of California, and one daughter, Carrie.
It may be mentioned that the Judge is a member of the Tuolumne Re-Union, the 
State of Maine Association, and of the California Pioneers.

�A History of Tuolumne County, California� B.F. Alley, 1882.  Pg. 410-411.