William E. (William Eaton) Chandler, 1835-1917, was born and died in Concord, New Hampshire. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1854 and began practicing law in Concord in 1855. He married Ann Chandler (b. Gilmore), daughter of the Governor of New Hampshire, in 1859. She died in 1871, and in 1874 he married Lucy L. Chandler (b. Hale), daughter of a United States senator from New Hampshire. Chandler served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives from 1862 to 1865. In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him Solicitor and Judge Advocate General of the United States Navy. He was then appointed assistant Secretary of the Treasury. He again served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1881, and in 1882 he was appointed Secretary of the Navy by President Chester A. Arthur. Chandler was elected to the United States Senate in 1887 and served until 1901. He was then appointed by President William McKinley to the Spanish Treaty Claims Commission and served until 1907, thereafter resuming the private practice of law. In 1907 Chandler was lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the Next Friends lawsuit, claiming that Mary Baker Eddy was not competent to manage her own affairs. The lawsuit was ultimately unsuccessful.

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