Shortly after 1850 political affairs commenced to receive Mr. Chandler's attention, and he gradually entrusted more and more of the actual management of his large business to others, though he still for some years directed in a general way the operations of the house. He had been already absent one winter on a trip to the West Indies for his health, and had made a brief and not wholly satisfactory experiment (about 1846) at establishing a jobbing fancy-goods trade in New York. With these exceptions he had made his Detroit dry-goods business his personal charge. The firm name had generally been Z. Chandler & Co., although it was for some time Chandler & Bradford, and some of his relatives had been and were associated with him in business. From his second location he had moved his stock to more commodious quarters on the site now occupied by the Chandler Block, and in 1852 he again moved to the stores built jointly by himself and Mr. Baldwin on the southwest corner of Woodward avenue and Woodbridge street. In 1855, as outside matters commenced to press constantly upon Mr. Chandler's attention, there came into his employment as a clerk a young man of twenty-three from Kinderhook, N.Y., Allan Shelden. He showed an aptitude for business and a capacity for work that recalled to the head of the house his own earlier days, and Mr. Shelden's rise in his employer's confidence was rapid and permanent. On Feb. 1, 1857, just before Mr. Chandler took his seat as the successor of Lewis Cass in the Senate, the firm name was changed to Orr, Town & Smith, with Mr. Chandler as a special partner, with an interest of $50,000. In the fall of that year, it became Town, Smith & Shelden; in the fall of 1859 it was changed to Town & Shelden; on Feb. 1, 1866, it was again changed to the present name of Allan Shelden & Co. Three years later Mr. Chandler ceased to be a special partner, and thus finally sundered his formal connection with the business he had established. The mercantile pre-eminence in Michigan of his house in its line of trade has been maintained by his successors, and it now occupies the magnificent Chandler Block, built for its accommodation by its founder in 1878 on Jefferson avenue in Detroit. Mr. Shelden himself continued in confidential relations with his predecessor, and was entrusted in later years with the management of a large share of his private affairs.