from Merrily Lawson:
Civil War Service: Enlisted on 14 Nov 1861 as Pvt in Company H of the 5th
Cavalry Regiment Kansas. Received a disability discharge 1 Dec 1862 at Cairo,
Illinois. Enlisted 5 Feb 1864 in the 48th Iowa Infantry. Mustered out 21 Oct
1864 at Rock Island, Illinois.

From the Lynden Pioneer Press of 8 Jan 1889:
Austin Chambers died on the first day of January, 1889 at his late
residence in Lynden, and was buried from the Methodist Episcopal church, the
Rev. John A. Tennant, pastor of the church officiating. The Masonic order of
Lynden, of which the deceased was a member, took charge of the remains, carried
them from the house to the church and from the church to the cemetery,
consigning the remains of the deceased to the tomb with the impressive rites
peculiar to that organization. The church was crowded to its utmost capacity and
a large concourse of sorrowing and sympathizing friends followed the casket to
the tomb.
The deceased was born at Johnstown, Pennsylvania, March 29, 1841, and was
consequently at the time of his death 48 years of age. He enlisted in Co. H, 5th
Kansas Cav., at the outbreak of the civil war, fought gallantly through to its
close, and with thousands of others of its brave defenders, who survived the
conflict was honorably discharged at the expiration of his term of service.
Upon the organization of the G. A. R. Post in Lynden some time ago, he
joined it and remained an esteemed and honored member of that fraternity up to
the hour of his death. Austin Chambers was a man of a singularly gentle, genial,
and winning spirit making and attaching friends to him with hooks of steel.
Fidelity to friends and faithfulness to trusts, either public or private, was a
distinguishing and pronounced trait of his character. As a businessman and
financier he was exceptionally cautious, clear-headed and successful; by a few
years industry, enterprise and goal management, principally in the stock
business in Colorado, having amassed a generous competence of this world's
goods. He was in hearty sympathy with all worthy public enterprises and
institutions, and willing to aid by his good judgment and wise counsel, in
placing them on a firm and enduring foundation.
He was in an official capacity intimately associated with, and exhibited a
deep interest in the prosperity and welfare of the Northwest Normal school, had
contributed to quite an extent in its aid and we have reason to believe had he
lived would have made a generous donation to help create a permanent endowment
fund for the institution.
The genial, winning presence, wise counsel, and helpful hand will be missed,
in the family circle, and in the wider circle of friends, neighbors,
acquaintances and the community at large. The half-executed plans which he was
so ambitious to carry out, and which would have added so materially to the
prosperity of the community will doubtless remain unexecuted. But still "when
the dread summons came he went, not like the quarry slave scourged to his
dungeon, but soothed and sustained by an unfaltering trust, he wrapped the
drapery of his couch about him and laid him down to pleasant slumbers.