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SOURCE: History of Genesee County, Michigan
        pub. Everts and Abbott - 1879

        Page facing 172


                             J. R. CHAMBERS

  Jeremy R. Chambers was born in Madison Co., N. Y., in December, 1816.
When he was twelve years of age his parents moved to Jefferson.  The family
were poor, and Jeremy, the oldest boy, soon became the main support.
Thinking he could better secure a home for the family in a new country, he
and his brother William started for Michigan on foot, with only a few
dollars.  At Detroit he purchased an axe and pursued his journey; arrived
in Burton, Genesee Co., March 27, 1836, walking the entire distance from
Jefferson Co., N. Y., in fourteen days.  Arriving in Burton, he hired out
for a year.  In July his employer let him have one hundred dollars, with
which he entered eighty acres of land in Richfield.  Not being satisfied
with the location, he continued to work by the month or job for three
years, when he bought forty acres of land in Burton, and made improvements
as best he could.  In 1841 he built a house and sowed ten acres of wheat.

  In the spring of 1842 his parents, with five children, came on to live
with him.  In June a heavy frost killed his wheat, which was a serious
blow, and he was obliged to sell the eighty acres of land in Richfield for
thirty dollars, needed to buy seed-wheat the next fall.

  The family struggled on for eight years, when the father and mother died,
and the family was broken up.  Mr. Chambers and two of his brothers engaged
in fishing on Lake Huron for three years; from this enterprise he saved a
few thousand dollars.  Returning to Genesee County, he purchased one
hundred and sixty acres of land in the town of Flint, and built a house on
the land.  From that time the improvements went on until he now has a fine
farm, with such surroundings as indicate a wealthy farmer.  In 1868 he sold
the farm and moved to Flint, to enjoy a well-earned competency.

  On the 25th of October, 1853, he was married.  Mrs. Chambers was the
daughter of Charles Johnson, formerly from Ovid, N. Y.  He moved to Oakland
Co., Mich., and settled on the bank of Elizabeth Lake, in 1824; in 1836 he
moved to Burton, this county, where he died in 1864.

  Mr. and Mrs. Chambers united with the Methodist Episcopal Church some
twenty years ago, and have since remained consistent members.  They have
been the parents of two daughters, one of whom died; the other lives with
her parents.

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