James Chapman, a native of Pennsylvania, son of Phillip Chapman and grandfather of R. A. Chapman, moved to Sumner county, Middle Tennessee, from Prince Edward county, Virginia. He was a very prominent American Revolutionary soldier, and was entitled to a sword from the government. The tassel was shot from the hilt of his sword at the battle of Long Island. He served several campaigns during the war, and in 1783 moved to Prince Edward county, Virginia. He was then called into service again, but his wife being sick and Benjamin, his brother, being then old enough, the latter took the place of James in the army. In 1817 this Benjamin, the brother of James, removed from Charlotte county, Virginia, to Williamson county, Tennessee. He raised a large, pious family, two sons, Phillip and William, and several daughters. Many of the descendants still live in Middle Tennessee.

James Chapman lived in Virginia until he removed to Sumner county, Tennessee, arriving December 24, 1797, at King's Station about two miles from the present site of Gallatin. Mr. King was the father of Rev. Samuel King, one of the ministers who constituted the Cumberland Presbyterian church, and the Kings had been special friends of the Chapmans in Virginia. In 1799 Mr. Chapman lived on Desha's Fork of Bledsoe's Creek. In 1800 he bought a tract of land near King's Station. He died the same year of consumption and was buried on King land near the station. This disease seems to have been hereditary. While a resident of Virginia he was flat-boating and attempted to land in Richmond during a violent storm; he experienced great difficulty in so doing, took cold from exposure which settled on his lungs, finally resulting in his death.

James Chapman married Martha Kirkpatriok about 1772 or 1773. They had nine children: Phillip, the eldest, Alexander, John, Martha, Samuel, James, Benjamin, William and Mary. The latter came to her death by falling in scalding water. James Chapman was extremely religious and was a member and ruling elder in the Presbyterian church. Of the children, Phillip was born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, May 26, 1773. He had three sons, John, Phillip and Newton. Nothing is known of John's family. Phillip and Newton raised families in Ellis county, Texas, where some of their children still reside. Alexander Chapman, of the above named children, was born in January, 1776, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and died September 15, 1834. He was a Cumberland Presbyterian minister and was regarded as one of the greatest revivalists of that denomination in his day. He has two grandsons who are widely known missionaries in Japan—Alexander Haile being one of them. Alexander Chapman has one grandson in Columbia, Tennessee, and some in Texas and Missouri. John Chapman, another son of James, was born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, and died without heirs. Martha Chapman, also born in Bucks county, married a Mr. Brown, and had a large family, one of whom, John Brown, joined the Mormons at an early .date, went with them to Salt Lake City and had three wives and twenty- five children. Samuel and James Chapman were both born in Prince Edward county, Virginia, but there is no record of them.

Benjamin Chapman, the father of Richard A. Chapman, was born in Prince Edward county, Virginia, July 13, 1789. He was stationed at Pensacola, Florida, during the war of 1812, and died on the old homestead in Middle Tennessee. About 1826 he married Rebecca Ann Bull, whose paternal ancestors came from England about 1685. Her mother was a Miss Anderson, and her grandparents' surname Mabin, whose history dates back to about 1665, having first settled at Hillsboro, North Carolina, and prominently participated in the Revolutionary war. The people of this section frequently raised tobacco, put it in thick-headed hogsheads, in and through the middle of which they inserted a stout, wooden pin, placed over that two poles, similar to the shafts of a vehicle, and to this their oxen were hitched, preparatory to the roll-trip to market.

Benjamin Chapman was a boat builder before the days of steam boats, and navigated his own boats by the river current on the Cumberland river and other rivers in Tennessee to New Orleans. Here he disposed of both cargo and boat, the heavy timbers of the latter being used for foundations of buildings in New Orleans. These boats were put together with wooden pins, there being no nails or iron in those days, even shingles on houses being so retained. He always had a horse aboard boat, the animal being used to carry specie and camp outfit on the return, which entailed a walk back home, a journey through a wilderness fraught with much danger, various tribes of Indians being encountered and the route frequented by robbers. As a mere matter of history, at this early date, the inhabitants as a rule could not get money to pay their taxes, and they were usually paid in peltry, such as the hides of all animals, (taken from the Records of Sumner County, Tennessee). Boat building was the regular business of Benjamin Chapman until 1835, at which date he settled down on a farm in Sumner county and remained there until his death in 1859. There were three children in the family of Benjamin Chapman, two of whom are still living. William A. Chapman, born August 2, 1832, is on the old homestead in Sumner county. During the war between the states he served in the Confederate army under General Morgan, was captured with the Morgan forces in Ohio and remained a prisoner until the close of the war. He married Mildred Fry, and has three daughters and one son, John, and several grandchildren.

Richard A. Chapman, who is now well past the age of four-score years, was born November 29, 1829, in Sumner county, Tennessee. There he was reared and educated, and most of his early training was acquired in a log schoolhouse three miles south of Gallatin. To quote his own words, he "learned to write with a quill pen, seated on a split log, without a back, and no desk. Barefooted boys and girls waded in the branch and swung each other in grapevine swings, and had sweethearts—as they do today.''

After living the first thirty-three years of his life in Tennessee, Mr. Chapman came to Texas in February, 1862. He volunteered for service in the Confederate army, and at the close of the war his company was disbanded at Houston. When he arrived in Sherman the town was a village with about four hundred people, and all the surrounding country was a wild and open cattle range. He has seen deer, antelopes, buffaloes and wild turkeys in great abundance throughout a country that is now covered over with smiling farms, towns and other evidences of modern civilization. After the war, he invested what little money he had in merchandise and land, and has always prospered in his business affairs. When the Merchants and Planters National Bank was organized in 1873, he became identified with its official management, and has served as its vice-president for about forty years. His own motto has been "a dollar saved is a dollar made with interest." No man has more friends or has been trusted more implicitly in the community than this well known Sherman banker.

About 1848, before he reached his majority, Mr. Chapman joined an Old-School Presbyterian church. About five years later, in 1853, he was given his first degree in the Masonic Lodge at Gallatin, Tennessee, and again to use his own words, '' found to my surprise that my mother had taught me the principles of the order from infancy.'' On leaving Tennessee in 1862, he got a demit from the Masonic order, and on reaching Sherman placed this paper with the local Lodge, and went into the Confederate army. He has always been loyal to the tenets of Masonry, although other affairs has kept him from as regular attendance as he could have wished. He is one of the oldest Masons in north Texas, and feels that the teachings of the order are certain to bring into each life the highest ideals of service and character. Mr. Chapman believes that while churches may change their teachings, true Masons never do, and those who obey the strict rules and rites of Masonry must in all important respects conform to the highest ideals of the Christian life.

On April 30, 1875, Mr. Chapman was married in Gallatin, Tennessee, to Miss Mary Vivian Fry, who was born in Winchester, Clarke county, Kentucky. Her father was a farmer and merchant of Winchester, and at one time represented his district in the state legislature of Kentucky and was quite a prominent man. Mr. and Mrs. Chapman have five children: three sons and two daughters, as follows: James E., born in 1858, married Helen Smith of Austin, Texas, and is a farmer and stock raiser near Sherman; Richard A., Jr., born in 1860, married Nora Mayfield of Overton, Texas, and with George F., unmarried, constitutes the firm Chapman Milling Company at Sherman; Mrs. Lulu May- field, the older daughter, is the wife of Allison May- field, one of the railroad commissioners of the state of Texas and one of the most prominent men in public affairs in the state today; Miss Mamie Chapman lives at home with her parents.

Mr. Chapman has always been a Democrat and has given his yeoman's service to the party and to the cause of just government. The Chapman residence in Sherman is at 1301 East Lamar street.

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