Edward Chambers

Edward Chambers, farmer, Confederate officer, and state representative, was born in Wilson County, Tennessee, on August 14, 1815, the son of Lewis and Annie (Hunter) Chambers. Chambers remained in Tennessee throughout his youth. In 1836 he married Elizabeth DeBow Smith in Wilson County. This couple had three sons and five daughters. He won election as representative for Wilson County to the Twenty-sixth Tennessee General Assembly, serving from 1845 through 1847 as a member of the Whig Party. Sometime after 1847 Chambers immigrated with his family to Texas and settled in Collin County. Here he established himself as a farmer and played a leading role in the public affairs of the community. By 1860 Chambers was worth $8,120 in personal and real estate property. In 1863 following the outbreak of the Civil War, Chambers joined the Fifteenth Battalion, Texas State Troops, as captain for Company D. Prior to the war's end he received promotion to colonel. At the end of the war Chambers returned to Collin County. He won election as representative for Collin County to the Texas legislature in 1866, 1872, 1876, and 1882, encompassing the Eleventh, Thirteenth, Fifteenth, and Eighteenth legislatures, respectively. Edward Chambers died in Collin County on September 27, 1887, and was buried there at Rowlett Creek Cemetery.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Alice Pitts, Wanda O'Roark, and Doris Posey. Collin County (Texas) Cemetery Inscriptions, Volume I (Ft. Worth: Manney, 1975). Alice E. Pitts and Minnie P. Champ. Collin County, Texas, Families (Hurst, Texas: Curtis, 1994). Charles E. Spellman, ed., The Texas House of Representatives: A Pictorial Roster 1846–1992 (Austin: Texas House of Representatives, 1992).