Joseph Chandler

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Joseph Chandler was born September 14, 1802 in Landaff, Grafton County, New Hampshire, the son of Ezra and Fanny Allard Chandler. He was the third of five sons, and the ninth child in this family of eleven children, all of whom lived to adulthood.

Joseph married Roxanna (Rosan) Clark, the daughter of Ebenezer and Hannah Merrill Clark, and they had an only child, Moses Knight Chandler, born April 8, 1836. Moses Knight Chandler was named for an uncle who had married Joseph's sister, Lucy Chandler.

Rosannah (Clark) Chandler Joseph Chandler
Rosannah (Clark) Chandler Joseph Chandler

Joseph is reported to have owned a good farm two miles north-west of the center of Landaff. Rosan died June 9, 1870, and was buried in the Landaff Cemetery near the graves of Ezra and Fanny Allard Chandler.

When his son Moses, and daughter-in-law, Emma Jane, and their children, Fred and Clara, prepared to make their way to California in 1883, Joseph reluctantly decided to follow. Clara was to reminisce in 1949 about their trip cross country which took thirteen days. She was seven at the time, and remembered that her job was to carry her grandfather's cider jug. Joseph used crutches to walk when he started the trip, but soon stopped using them when he reached California. Dr. Thompson in Lisbon had told him that he wouldn't last through the trip, but Joseph had said that then he would be buried beside the tracks. He was to make five more cross country trips, three of them by himself, before his death on December 10, 1894.

The family settled first in the Cahuenga Pass, where they bought a ranch to raise Kentucky horses. They moved two years later to Roscoe, in the San Fernando Valley, where they bought one hundred and sixty acres, and planted orchards and vineyards.

Joseph died December 10, 1894, his death certificate signed by his son, Moses, as attending physician. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, in East Los Angeles, next to Magdalena Schlador Chandler, Harry Chandler's first wife, who had died two years before.

Tombstone of Joseph Chandler and his son Moses Knight Chandler Tombstone of Moses Knight Chandler's first wife Magdalena (Schlador) Chandler, and Emma (Little) Chandler, the mother of Moses
Tombstone of Joseph Chandler and his son Moses Knight Chandler Tombstone of Moses Knight Chandler's first wife Magdalena (Schlador) Chandler, and Emma (Little) Chandler, the mother of Moses