Old Missoula

Familiar Person On City Streets Is 84 Years Old

Family Name of Chambers Is Traced Nearly Thousand Years.

D. C. [Daniel] Chambers, long-time resident of Missoula, celebrated his eighty-fourth birthday early this month, September 3. For the last 10 years he has sold popcorn, candy and apples about the city.

Until the first of last month one of the best buildings for him was the Federal building. At that time the order that no solicitors could sell their wares in that building was officially enforced. As a consequence that field is no longer open to him. He is very appreciative of the courtesies and generosities of the employes there.

Mr. Chambers has lived in Missoula for 26 years. He has been a resident of Montana much longer, having been ordained a Methodist minister in Butte in 1898 by Bishop Joyce. He had been chosen to cover the pioneer territory of Western Montana after studying at De Pauw university.

Preaches at Helena.

His first appointment was at Helena. He preached his second sermon there in the Methodist church about January, 1890. Next he was given an appointment at Sand Coulee. In 1891 the Monarch church was built by popular subscription from Neihart, then a thriving mining camp. At Barker the original western meetings were held in a saloon where every denomination worshipped.

Next he returned to Helena where he attended the Methodist Theological school for three years. In October, 1894, he moved to Ovando. There the Ovando church was built by subscription under his direction. He stayed there for three years as resident pastor.

Mr. Chambers retired from the ministry in 1898 and settled on a ranch at the base of Mount Morrell up the Blackfoot valley. He remained in that locality until 1911 when he moved to Missoula with his family. His wife, Ellen, was talented as a painter and portrait artist of which many works remain throughout Western Montana. They had three children; Two sons, E. C., who was schooled here and in Michigan, and Ira M., who attended Montana State University; one daughter, Monta M., nurse at the Deaconess hospital in Spokane. The sons live here.

The veteran Missoulian was born September 3, 1853 at Fort Vincennes, Ind., and was about nine years old when the Civil war began. His brother served in it as a courier. Mr. Chambers faintly recalls the gloom that overspread the country when Lincoln’s assassination became known.

Is Bound Out

When he was 15 years old he was bound out. His first work was planting 65 acres of crop. When he reached 21 years of age he moved away. He launched on his life profession then and at the age of 24 was elected exhorter in the Methodist churches. He received his license as local preacher at Leckport, Ind. In his first congregation, 20 were taken into the church. That practice was intermingled with his studies at De Pauw.

Mr. Chambers has traced his family name back 811 years to De La Chambre, exchequer of Edinburgh, Scotland. Descendants include Charles and William Chambers, publishers at the time of the poets, Bobby Burns and Sir Walter Scott. Charles Chambers was author of the first English encyclopedia and was made a knight for his work.

The first members of the family arrived in America in 1632. Six families moved to Virginia in 1700 from Scotland and later settled in the Ohio valley and founded Chambersburg, Ind.

The above article appeared in The Sunday Missoulian on October 3, 1937.

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