This is a daguerreotype portrait by an unidentified maker of Martha Cleaveland Chandler with her two children, Horace and Peter. They are, from left to right, Peter, Horace, and Martha Chandler. Born in Brunswick on July 16, 1812, she was married to Peleg Whitman Chandler, born in New Gloucester, Maine, and a prominent Boston attorney.
Though the family lived in Boston, they maintained strong connections to Maine. Martha was a daughter of Martha Bush and Parker Cleaveland, Bowdoin College's first professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, known as the "Father of American Mineralogy." Parker Cleaveland built and resided in what is now known as the Cleaveland House, the residence of the Bowdoin College president. Martha's husband, Peleg, Bowdoin class of 1834 and later a Bowdoin trustee, bought the house in 1860. It remained in the family until 1951.
