Adam Black Chambers, 1808–1854

Adam Black Chambers was born on 9 January 1808 in Mercer, Mercer County, Pennsylvania. He died on 22 May 1854 at the age of forty-six in St. Louis, Missouri. Adam Chambers was editor and co-owner of the Missouri Republican. The oldest newspaper in St. Louis was the Missouri Gazette, first published in 1808. It changed ownership in 1820 and was renamed the Missouri Republican in 1822.

Adam Chambers came to St. Louis in 1830 but soon removed to Bowling Green, Pike County, Missouri, where he completed his legal education and was admitted to the Missouri bar. He was appointed circuit attorney for Pike County and was later elected to represent Pike County in the state legislature. He also published the Salt River Journal, a weekly newspaper in Bowling Green, but in 1837 he purchased an interest in the Missouri Republican and returned to St. Louis. His partner in owning and publishing the paper was George Knapp. Adam was the paper’s editor for seventeen years until his death in 1854.

In 1840, Adam was involved in a political dispute with Thomas Hudson, resulting in a duel. The two met on Bloody Island (in the Mississippi River opposite downtown St. Louis) on the morning of 17 July 1840, exchanging rifle shots at forty paces. After missing three times, they gave up.

Adam had been healthy until just a few weeks before his death. He became ill and was bedridden when he died at his home on the corner of Sixth and Elm streets of “internal inflammation.”

Adam and Elizabeth Graves were married on 28 October 1833 in Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky. Elizabeth was the daughter of Benjamin Franklin Graves and Mary Dudley. She was born on 16 September 1810 in Lexington and died on 2 January 1886 at the age of seventy-five in St. Louis.

Adam and Elizabeth had four children:

• • Laura Colman Chambers, born about 1835; married John F. Hill. (No further information.)
  • Benjamin Graves Chambers was born in 1837 in St. Louis. Ben was killed in April 1864 at the age of twenty-seven, fighting for the Confederacy in the Civil War.
  • Mary Graves Chambers, born 10 April 1840, St. Louis; married Archibald Christian Bankhead, 10 June 1857, Pike County, Missouri; died 2 April 1906, in Pike County.
  • Elizabeth “Lizzie” Chambers, born 3 September 1841, St. Louis; married Col. Edward Brodie Hull II, 18 July 1861, in Pike County; died 24 January 1924, St. Louis. Edward was a lieutenant colonel in the 2nd Confederate infantry regiment of Missouri during the Civil War. He enlisted at Springfield, Missouri, on 18 January 1862.

Written by Edward “Ted” Steele
July 2022

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Last Modified: 12-Nov-2022 16:20