On Oct. 7 of 2019, the Chickamauga Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) will celebrate the 125th anniversary of its organizing in Chattanooga. Why and how did a group of Chattanooga women decide they wanted to be part of a fairly new national patriotic organization and why was the chapter named Chickamauga? It was a mystery seemingly lost to time and memory. The booklet produced for the 100th anniversary of the DAR stated that no one knew of or the reason for a listing of its only honorary member, Helen Mason Boynton. Yet the answer was there in the DAR’s original yearbook, which listed the name of Boynton.
It all goes back to the founding of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, the first national military park. In 1888, Union Gen. Henry Van Ness Boynton, who received a Medal of Honor at the Battle of Missionary Ridge, returned to Chattanooga with his commanding officer, Gen. Ferdinand Van Derveer. After touring the area by horse, the two veterans developed the vision of a battlefield park. Gen. Boynton, who lived in Washington, D.C., became the chairman of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park Commission. He visited Chattanooga frequently and often brought his wife, Helen. During their visits, the Boyntons met Amelia and Hiram Chamberlain, who had also fought for the Union and had become a prominent Chattanooga industrialist. Helen and Amelia became close friends.
Mrs. Boynton was a charter member of the national DAR at its founding in October 1890. Her national number is 28, and she is listed as an “Indispensable Charter Member.” At the time she was acting as what is now called the Organizing Secretary General in charge of establishing new chapters. Helen spurred Amelia’s interest in the DAR. Because the military park brought them together, the local chapter took the name of Chickamauga.
The mystery of its early years was solved in 2011 when the local chapter began digitizing its historical records dating back to 1894. The first items scanned were the minutes of meetings and showed that the organizing meeting was held on Cameron Hill at Amelia Chamberlain’s home Oct. 7, 1894. The first business meeting was held Dec. 11.
The Dec. 11 minutes state, “Mrs. Chamberlain read a letter from Mrs. Boynton to whom she was indebted for her first interest awakened in the DAR and in acknowledgment thereof she proposed the name of Helen M. Boynton as our first and only honorary member which was put to a vote and enthusiastically carried.” Helen Boynton often came to meetings and was the speaker on May 26, 1896, in discussing the National Society and “what a great national and historical organization we are becoming.” She was the alternate and representative for the chapter at DAR’s Continental Congress in 1895, when Regent Amelia Chamberlain could not attend. For some years Mrs. Boynton was more than an honorary member, similar to one of today’s associate members who always paid her dues.