Frances Caroline "Fanny" Chamberlain, née Adams (12 August 1825 – 18 October 1905) was born in the Greater Boston

Greater Boston

Greater Boston is the area of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts surrounding the city of Boston. Due to ambiguity in usage, the size of the area referred to can be anywhere between that of the metropolitan statistical area of Boston and that of the city's combined statistical area which includes...

 area. She was shuffled to different family members until she settled with Rev. George Eliashib Adams, a nephew of her father, in Brunswick, Maine

Brunswick, Maine

Brunswick is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 20,278 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan area. Brunswick is home to Bowdoin College, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, , and the...

 as a small child. She grew up an educated and artistic girl with a talent for music and singing, which is what made her play music in the First Parish Congregationalist Church

Congregational church

Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....

 (her adoptive father's church).

It was at First Parish that Fanny first met Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, one of the many students at nearby Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College

Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is an elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States. At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is...

, in 1849.