Joseph Chandler of Chandler Hill
by Bob Brail

            On any pleasant spring or fall weekend in southern St. Charles County, it is not unusual for the traffic on Highway 94 to grow quite heavy.  Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of area residents make their way to the many wineries between Defiance and Dutzow.  One popular destination is Chandler Hill Winery, located a few miles down Highway F, just off Highway 94.  As Chandler Hill’s patrons enjoy the lovely view from the restaurant’s deck, occasionally some might question for whom the winery was named.  The answer is Joseph Chandler.

            According to his headstone, Joseph Chandler, an African American, was born on Christmas day in 1849.  However, the only documentary evidence for this birth date is his death certificate, which was completed by his youngest son.  It is clear from the ages Chandler himself gave census takers during his lifetime that he was born between 1856 and 1858.  Chandler and both his parents were born into slavery in Missouri.

            Joseph Chandler maintained he came to the Defiance area from somewhere near Booneville in Cooper County, probably in the early 1870’s.  The story that he told was he traveled down the Missouri River with two men, who left him in the Defiance area.  According to Chandler family oral tradition, Chandler’s given name at birth was Adam Carr.  There was indeed a slave owner named Carr living near Booneville in 1860.  It is also interesting to note that Timothy Chandler, who lived in Palestine Township in Cooper County (which is a few miles south of Booneville), owned thirty-one slaves in the 1860 slave census, including both a three-year old and four-year old male.  It is possible, though certainly not provable, that Adam Carr, probably along with his mother since he was just a little boy, was purchased from B. F. Carr by Timothy Chandler, who then renamed him Joseph Chandler.  Chandler likely was one of the two young boys listed in the 1860 slave census.  Years later Chandler would tell his grandchildren how he taught himself to read and write from books his owner quietly gave him, since teaching a slave to read was illegal.

            Joseph Chandler began working for various farmers in the area until eventually beginning a long relationship in the 1870’s with Francis Louis Fluesmeier, his wife Kate, and their children, who owned property along Highway F and Defiance Road.  For the next several decades, Chandler (and after their marriage, his wife Ellen) helped raise the Fluesmeiers’ children and grandchildren, who knew Chandler as “Uncle Joe.”  In their later years, Fluesmeiers’ grandchildren would remember him as often being their primary caretaker when they visited the farm.  They recalled him as a kind and loving man who would put up with no nonsense when work needed to be done.  One day while working, Bruce Fluesmeier, Francis’s son, teased one of his sisters by pretending a piece of hay was a snake in order to scare her.  He was quickly chastised by Chandler. 

            On December 29, 1881, Chandler married Ellen Jones, a longtime resident of Callaway Township in St. Charles County.  They soon affiliated themselves with the Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church, at the corner of Highway N and Hopewell Road; the Chandlers would faithfully attend services there for the rest of their lives, and eventually they would both be buried in the church’s cemetery.  For the next two decades, they lived on various rental properties in Callaway and Dardenne Townships, close enough to the Fluesmeier family on Defiance Road to have regular interaction with them.

            Renting a Callaway Township home and farm southeast of New Melle in 1900, Joseph and Ellen were raising a rather large family.  In their first eighteen years of marriage, they had twelve children who survived: an eldest child who had apparently already left home by 1900, Virlena (born 1883), Joseph (1884), Lafayette (1887), Ellen (1888), Ramon Willis (1889), Lucela (1891), Carey (1892), Elmer and Elbert (1893), Julia (1895), and Bertha (1896).  The family must have been quite poor.  In fact, it is likely they lived with another family, probably Ellen’s parents, the first several years of their marriage.  St. Charles County personal property tax records do not indicate Joseph Chandler, a farmer, owned any livestock (cattle, horses, mules, sheep, and hogs) until the late 1880’s.  At that point, he owned only a few hogs, but nothing else. 

            Things were a little better by the turn of the century, but not much.  Personal property tax records for 1899 show that Chandler owned three horses, two cattle, and nine hogs.  The total value of his personal property was assessed at only $140.  Three years later, the family had one horse, two mules, and eleven hogs. 

            One more son, Harry Gilbert, would be born on February 10, 1902, and his birth may have been the cause of a great sorrow for Joseph Chandler.  Four months later, Ellen Chandler would be dead, leaving her husband with complete responsibility for both the farm and family.  Apparently some of the children were sent to live with relatives, for eight years later, the federal census of 1910 lists Joseph Chandler living with only three of his sons.

Joseph and Ellen Chandler (courtesy of Donna Williams)

            Joseph Chandler’s financial status about the time his wife died was anything but affluent.  From 1901 until 1904, he and his family moved four times from rental farm to rental farm.  Chandler kept a small herd of livestock, a horse or two, a couple of mules, and about ten hogs.  By 1903 he no longer owned any livestock, and the total assessed value of his personal property was only $340.  In April of 1904, Chandler and his sixty year old aunt, Amanda Washington, purchased a lot in Howell from Dr. Jasper Castlio for $250 cash.  It is not known which person supplied the money for the deal, but the deed required that Washington, who was possibly a former slave of the Castlio family, be able to live in the house until her death, when ownership would pass to Chandler.  Chandler, however, must have been under financial stress, for the same day, Joseph Chandler borrowed $120 from Dr. Castlio, offering his new deed as collateral on the loan.  It would take Chandler more than six years to repay this money.    

            Chandler’s fortunes, however, would soon undergo dramatic change.  In April of 1905, Joseph Chandler paid $1,000 to purchase 46.4 acres from Charles Knepel, next to the farm owned by Francis Louis Fluesmeier; this acreage is now the home of Chandler Hill Winery.  During the previous four years, this impoverished father of thirteen children had moved four times and in the years leading up to the purchase owned little or no livestock.  Where did he acquire such a large sum of money? 

            The 1906-1912 ledger and day books for J. H. Schiermeier’s store in Defiance, in the archives of the Boone-Duden Historical Society, are helpful in understanding Chandler’s financial situation in the years immediately following his acquisition of the 46.4 acres.  Put simply, Chandler was poor.  Chandler’s account begins in April, 1907.  He kept his account, never large, paid throughout 1907, but went from the start of 1908 to the middle of 1909 before he was again able to pay the account in full.  By 1911 he again owed money to Schiermeier and in late 1911 began paying cash instead of charging purchases, continuing that practice into 1912.  Chandler’s entire purchases for the fifty-six months covered in the ledger and day books totaled only $265.  In other words, a man who paid $1000 for real estate in 1905 for the next several years had difficulty keeping current on general store purchases which averaged less than five dollars per month!

            How then did Joseph Chandler ever have enough money to pay for that property?  According to both Fluesmeier and Chandler family traditions, longtime friend Francis Louis Fluesmeier deeded the 46.4 acres to Joseph Chandler as an act of appreciation for what Joseph and Ellen Chandler had done for his children and grandchildren over the years.  This, however, is impossible because Fluesmeier never owned this parcel of land.  It is certainly possible, though, that Fluesmeier provided Chandler with the funds to make the purchase.  By 1905 Fluesmeier’s four children were all university graduates, two of them physicians, and he, his wife, and children owned 375 acres in the area, so the family must have been fairly well off.  This might explain how Chandler came to have so much money.  However it happened, by 1905 Joseph Chandler was Fluesmeier’s next-door neighbor, living in a log house just up the hill from the Fluesmeier home on Defiance Road.

            The store ledger and day books give wonderful insights into what Joseph Chandler’s life was like at this time.  One can deduce that Chandler chewed tobacco, raised some cattle and ducks, and had a flock of several dozen chickens.  He worked as a day laborer, earning ten cents an hour or one dollar a day for his efforts.  He cared deeply about his children’s education for, in spite of obvious poverty, he purchased school books and tablets.  There were few frills in the family’s life: Chandler would infrequently buy five or ten cents’ worth of candy and cakes and once his son Elmer bought a deck of cards.  One December Chandler paid seventy-five cents for a pair of skates; with so many children, it is likely these skates were shared.  Typically, though, his purchases for were staples like sugar, flour, shells, traps, and occasionally some clothing.

            Chandler continued to farm after 1905, but now on his own land.  By 1920, at the age of sixty-two, he was living with only his youngest son Harry.  Sometime in the next decade, Chandler moved a very short distance to the home of one of Francis Louis Fluesmeier’s grandsons, Arsdel, and his wife Nan and began working for them.  Chandler’s new home was just across Defiance Road, so he was still within sight of his log house.  Chandler lived in a room over the garage and ate his meals in the Fluesmeiers’ kitchen.  A. L. Fluesmeier, son of Arsdel and Nan, would years later remember Bible stories told by Chandler and small toys made by him which he gave to A. L. and his brother.  While Chandler lived with the Fluesmeiers, his home was occupied by the family of his son-in-law and daughter, Ora and Julia McRoberts.

            When Arsdel Fluesmeier died in 1933, Joseph Chandler moved back to his 46.4 acres.  Tragedy would soon strike his life again: on March 13, 1939, Julia Chandler McRoberts died, leaving her husband Ora responsible for their ten children.  Almost exactly one year later, on March 11, Ora McRoberts also died.  For the second time in his life, Joseph Chandler would be left with the responsibility of raising several children by himself: the 1940 federal census lists eight-four year old Joseph Chandler as the head of household, with his ten orphaned grandchildren living with him.  In the fall of 1940, Chandler’s Howell property was one of several properties condemned by the U. S. government in order for a TNT plant to be constructed at Weldon Spring.  According to one source, Chandler wept when he signed over the deed.

            Two of Chandler’s granddaughters, Lelia and Berniece McRoberts, now in their eighties, remember well the poverty of their existence but also that Joseph Chandler maintained a home “rich in happiness and love.”  He never spanked but instead placed his calloused, rough hands on each side of the offending child’s face and then rubbed vigorously!  Chandler valued the education of his grandchildren and saw to it that they attended school, even though they had to walk about four miles each way to the African American school on Muschany Hollow Road, near Hamburg.  The McRoberts children would hurry home each day to listen to “The Lone Ranger” on their battery powered radio (the old log house never had electricity since Chandler thought it too dangerous to wire).  The granddaughters also remember many pet chickens, along with Chandler’s warning not to grow too close to them because the birds might be their next meal.  Chandler never owned a car, but he attended church every Sunday at Hopewell, one of his grandsons driving him the nine miles. 

            Even in his eighties, Chandler worked very hard.  He was an energetic gardener until the end of his life, maintaining several gardens, where he grew melons, vegetables, pole beans, and corn.  The fence around one of these gardens was covered with grape vines.  The family also had free use of the Fluesmeier orchard with its apples, peaches, cherries, and grapes.  When Chandler relaxed, which wasn’t often, he enjoyed feeding birds.  Perhaps most importantly, his granddaughters remember him as a kind, generous man who, despite his own poverty, would “give you the shirt off his back.”  

            Toward the end of his long life, Joseph Chandler quit farming, but he remained very active.  Even in his nineties, he would rise every morning before daybreak, eat breakfast, and spend his day outdoors, caring for his property and tending his gardens, which by that time numbered “only” three.  His mind remained sharp until he became ill in April of 1952.  Two weeks later, on May 3, Chandler died in his home and was buried next to his wife at the Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church on Highway N.  He was about ninety-five years old.  His death certificate states that he had been a resident of the Femme Osage Township area for seventy-five years. 

            Though he was poor, Joseph Chandler left a rich legacy.  Chandler Hill Winery pays tribute to him with a large display of artifacts found at the site of his log house and with a beautiful fountain made from the home’s foundation stones.  This remarkable man, who experienced more than his share of hardship and sadness, always seemed to make the best of the situation by focusing his attention on others and making life better for them. 

   

Sources: 1875 and 1905 St. Charles County Plat Maps; Ancestry.com; Boone-Duden Historical Society (J. H. Schiermeier store ledger and day books); Digital.library.umsystem.edu; Dorris Keeven Franke interview (2013); Familysearch.org; Federal Censuses; A. L. Fluesmeier letter (2006); Mary McMillan emails (2011, 2013); Berniece McRoberts telephone interview (2013); Lelia McRoberts telephone interview (2013); St. Charles County Historical Society (Land and Property Records, Personal Property Tax Books 1880-1906); St. Charles County Marriage Books; St. Charles County Recorder of Deeds; Slave schedules 1860; Donna Williams emails and telephone interview (2013).