Henry Wilkins Chandler

Henry Wilkins Chandler (September 22, 1852 – 1938) was an American lawyer, newspaperman, politician, and federal official. Born a freeman, he was the first African American graduate from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. He served two terms in the Florida State Senate.

Early life and education Chandler was born September 22, 1852, in Bath, Maine, to Julia Ann (Fry) and Henry Augustus Chandler, a Baptist church deacon and barber. Chandler received his primary education at Bath's public schools and enrolled in Bates College in 1870. He went on to become an editor of the college's student-run newspaper, The Bates Student, and served on the executive committee of the Eurosophian Literary Society. He was the first African American student to graduate from the university.

Career After completion of his law degree he moved to Florida, passed the Florida Bar, and began to practice law in Ocala, Florida, in 1878. He also became active in his church affairs and was selected to be a deacon in the Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Ocala.

As a state senator he was photographed with some of his colleagues. He was Inspector of Customs in Tampa from 1908 until 1913. When U.S. President Woodrow Wilson dismissed all African American federal officials in Florida in 1913 he lost his job as inspector of customs in the town of Port Tampa. He is buried in Tiger Flowers Cemetery. They had at least six children, including their eldest son, Edward Marion Augustus Chandler (1887–1973), who was the second African American in the United States to receive a Ph.D. in Chemistry and a founding faculty member at Roosevelt University in Chicago.

After Annie Chandler's death, Henry Chandler remarried in 1914 to Maggie J. Adams, an active church member and dressmaker from Tampa. Henry Chandler was an active Freemason.