Daniel Henry Chamberlain

Who was Daniel Henry Chamberlain?

Daniel Henry Chamberlain was a planter, lawyer, author and the 76th Governor of South Carolina from 1874 until 1877.

Daniel H. Chamberlain was born in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, the ninth of ten children born to Eli Chamberlain and Achsah Forbes. In 1862, he graduated with honors from Yale University, where he was a member of the Skull and Bones society. He then attended Harvard Law School, leaving in 1863 to serve as a second lieutenant in the United States Army with the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry, a regiment of black troops. In 1866, Chamberlain moved to South Carolina to tend to the affairs of a deceased classmate.

He entered politics in 1868 as a delegate to the state constitutional convention from the Berkeley District. He served as Attorney General of South Carolina from 1868–1872 in Governor Robert K. Scott’s administration. After he failed to win the Republican nomination for governor in 1872, Chamberlain practiced law in Charleston. His partner later recalled that he worked hard and made very little by it; whatever his ethics in office, he certainly had not amassed a fortune by it.