William Chandler (businessman)

William Chandler was a 19th-century businessman based in Wilmington, Delaware, an active abolitionist, and an early railroad executive.

In 1818, Chandler served on the Wilmington City Council.^[1]

In 1825, he helped organize the Delaware Fire Insurance Company.^[1]

Chandler participated in several business ventures and abolitionist societies with Thomas Garrett, a Wilmington merchant and stationmaster on the Underground Railroad.

In 1827, the 25-year-old Abolition Society of the State of Delaware was reorganized as the Delaware Abolition Society, whose officers and directors included Chandler, Garrett, president John Wales, vice-president Edward Worrell, and others.^[1]

In 1829, he was elected a director of the Farmers' Bank of Delaware.^[1]

In 1833, he became a director of the Wilmington Whaling Company.^[1]

In 1835, Chandler and Garrett became directors of the new Wilmington Gas Company, which made gas "made from rosin, at $7 per 1,000 cubic feet" for lighting lamps.^[2] In 1836, he and Garrett invested with Joseph Whitaker and Whitaker's brothers to revive the Principio Furnace in Perryville, Maryland.^[3]

In 1837, he helped found and was named first vice-president of the First Board of Trade of Wilmington.^[1]

In 1838, Chandler was a director of three of the four railroad companies that were built the first rail link from Philadelphia to Baltimore: the Wilmington and Susquehanna Railroad, the Delaware and Maryland Railroad, and the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad. (The line is today part of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.) His service as a railroad executive is noted on the 1839 Newkirk Viaduct Monument.^[4]

From 1840 to 1843, Chandler served as a director of the Union Bank of Delaware.^[1]