Fanny Chamberlain

Who was Fanny Chamberlain?

Frances Caroline "Fanny" Chamberlain, née Adams was born in the Greater Boston area, daughter of Asher and Amelia Adams. As a small child she was shuffled to different family members until she settled with Rev. George Eliashib Adams, a nephew of her father's, in Brunswick, Maine. She grew up an educated and artistic girl with a talent for music and singing, which is what made her play music in the First Parish Congregationalist Church.

It was at First Parish that Fanny first met Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, one of the many students at nearby Bowdoin College, in 1849. The two had a difficult and slow courtship due to several factors including Fanny's apparent lack of interest early on and that Reverend Adams did not feel Chamberlain was good enough for his adopted daughter. Despite this, the couple became engaged in the autumn of 1852. A long engagement ensued, which took Chamberlain to work toward a Master's Degree at the Bangor Theological Seminary, and it took Fanny to teach voice at a girls' school, private piano lessons and playing the organ at a Presbyterian church in Milledgeville, Georgia for three years.