Thomas Jefferson Chambers was born in Orange County, Virginia, later known as Culpepper County, on March 22nd, 1840, to Landon Gore Chambers and wife, Mary Green Allan. Chambers migrated to Liberty, Liberty County, about 1857 and became associated with H. C. Shea, publisher of The Liberty Gazette on August 2nd, 1858. By August 1859, Chambers was the sole editor of the Gazette.
The newspaper ceased operation during the Civil War when Chambers joined the First Texas Militia on the 5th of December 1861. On May 3rd, 1862, Chambers enlisted as a private in Captain E.G. Pickett’s Company, Third Regiment of the Texas Mounted Volunteers, commanded by Colonel C.C. Gillespie. He was serving at Post Arkansas in the fall of 1862 when the garrison fell to the Federal Army. He was captured on 1st January 1863 and taken to Camp Douglas in Illinois. He was later exchanged as a prisoner and participated in the siege of Chattanooga.
BELOW: The front page of the first edition of The Vindicator.
The Vindicator began publishing on December 9, 1887, and was founded by Thomas Jefferson Chambers, a Texas politician and a two term mayor of Liberty. Jefferson started in the newspaper business as a teenager and continued as an editor for multiple Liberty papers before creating The Liberty Vindicator. We continue to thrive today by bringing up to date news and information about the Liberty County community.