According to Ross County Probate Court records, William died without having executed a last will and testament. Stephan Slane, his nephew-in-law, was named by the court to act as the executor of William’s estate. Probate records filed with the court provide details of the estate including both real and personal property. The Chillicothe City Directory, 1861 edition, on page 29 lists William Chandler as a carpenter with a shop located on Main Street between Hickory and Canal. Probate records list lumber, fence posts, nails, and similar items among his assets. Two bank accounts contained modest amounts of cash. Livestock sold by the estate included both cattle and hogs. Also recorded as assets are a double barreled shot gun and a rifle.
Chief among Williams assets were his several pieces of land in Ross County. The probate records for the estate show that taxes were paid by the estate to Ross County on several tracts of real property. In Scioto Township, the tracts are identified as #3604 comprised of 110 acres, corresponding to the warrant issued by Thomas Jefferson in 1802; and #3865 comprised of 4 acres, of unknown origin. Property #3565 comprised of 64 acres, of unknown origin, is in either Scioto or Franklin Township. Tracts #13372 comprised of 15 acres and #13773 comprised of 30 acres are in Franklin Township. These two properties conform to the two warrants issued in 1833 by Andrew Jackson and numbered 13,372 and 13,373 respectively. Property #9709 comprised of 40 acres, of unknown origin, is in Franklin Township. The property is referred to by number in the Jackson warrant #13,373 in describing adjacent properties for survey purposes.
I believe the property identified in Ross County tax records as #13773 is actually the property #13,373 described in the Jackson warrant. A further review of Ross County tax records might provide clues as to when properties #3865, #3565, and #9709 were acquired by Chandler.
Property numbers used by Ross County in its official records are reflected in “A Ross County Atlas,” printed by Gould & Co. in 1875.
William Chandler never married, had no children, and at the age of 65 had outlived all but one of his siblings. Hannah Chandler was four years younger than William. She had married Charles Blain in 1837 at the age of 23. Their only child, Sarah Chandler Blain, was born nine months after the marriage, and Charles Blain died within a year after Sarah’s birth. Hannah Chandler lived with her brother, William, for the remainder of his life, and would continue to live in Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio until her death in 1904 at the age of 90 years. She survived her daughter, Sarah Chandler Blain Slane, by more than a year.
Sarah Chandler Blain married Stephan Slane on February 14, 1865. Their marriage produced three daughters: Laura, born in 1871; Edna, born in 1874; and Bessie, born in 1876. The youngest, Bessie, would die in Chillicothe in 1898 as the result of typhoid fever. Sarah, her mother, died in Chillicothe in 1903 as the result of cancer.
Contained in William Chandler’s ledger is a brief entry in an unknown hand that indicates Edna and Laura Slane moved from Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio to Malta Bend, Saline County, Missouri in 1905. The details are not documented. However, family papers include a notebook detailing the income and expenses of a Saline County farm belonging to Laura and Edna. The notebook is supported by tax receipts on a year-by-year basis from 1914 until 1963, the year Laura Slane died in Malta Bend. Laura never married and lived with her sister until shortly before her death.
Edna Slane married twice. In 1907 she wed Payton Jeter, who died in 1910. Their only child, Byrle Elizabeth Jeter was born in 1909 and died in 1917. Edna married a second time in 1926. Her second husband, Alexander Highlander McRoberts, had three children by a previous marriage: Ellen Houston McRoberts, born in 1909; Lawrence Houston McRoberts, born in 1910; and Mary Elizabeth McRoberts, born in 1912.
In 1935, Ellen Houston McRoberts married John Aubrey Clyde. A family photo from 1944 shows Edna Slane McRoberts holding a newborn infant, her step granddaughter Susan Ann Clyde. Miss Edna, as Susan was to know her until Edna’s death in 1970 at the age of 96 years, was the great great great granddaughter of William Chandler, born 294 years earlier in Wiltshire, England.
Ellen Houston McRoberts died in 1965. Her brother Lawrence, who married Joyce Johnson on December 20, 1940, died in 1984, shortly before Susan Ann Clyde and I were married. On my first visit to Malta Bend, Susan and I stayed in Joyce McRoberts home across the street and several houses down from what had been the home of Miss Edna and Laura. It was during that visit with Joyce that I first noticed several framed documents hanging in the upstairs hallway outside the guest bedroom. One of those documents eventually drew my attention because it bore the signature of Thomas Jefferson, President….
1944 photo from Malta Bend, Missouri shows Miss Edna (3992) Slane Jeter McRoberts, the great great great grandaughter of William Chandler of Wiltshire, England holding the infant Susan Ann Clyde.
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