The following is a retype from EARLY FRIENDS FAMILIES OF UPPER BUCKS, with Some
Accounts of Their Descendants, by Clarence V(Vernon) Roberts, assisted by
Warren S. Ely, Originally published Philadelphia, 1925, Reprinted Genealogical
Publishing Company, Inc., Baltimore MD 1975. Comments in ( ) are note
inclusions from the publisher/writer; Comments in [ ] are from me personally:
The following is a retype from EARLY FRIENDS FAMILIES OF UPPER BUCKS, with Some
Accounts of Their Descendants, by Clarence V(Vernon) Roberts, assisted by
Warren S. Ely, Originally published Philadelphia, 1925, Reprinted Genealogical
Publishing Company, Inc., Baltimore MD 1975. Comments in ( ) are note
inclusions from the publisher/writer; Comments in [ ] are from me personally:
CHAPMAN FAMILY - ADDENDA - Beginning on page 595
While the Chapman family was not very prominently identified with the
Friends Meeting at Richland, several members located in Upper Bucks quite
early, and were identified with the affairs of the Friends colony there, making
it proper that some mention of them should be made in this narrative.
The pioneer ancestor of the Chapman family of Bucks County was John
Chapman, a native of Stanghah, in the Parish of Skelton, Yorkshire, England,
who, with his wife Jane and their five children, came to Pennsylvania in 1684.
Having sailed in the Ship Shield from New Castle on the River Tyne, they
arrived in Maryland on September 15, 1684, from which point they migrated
overland to Bucks County, in the latter part of October. John Chapman was born
at Stanghah in 1626 and, as early as 1656, was a convert to the principles and
faith of Friends, suffering imprisonment and other persecutions for his
religious priciples. In 1660 he was confined in York Castle for eight weeks,
for refusing to take a prescribed oath and at several times thereafter had
goods seized for the payment of fines imposed for attending non-conformist
meetings. He married, first, on 10 mo. 14, 1665, and had one daughter Ann, who
died in childhood. His wife died 8 mo. 2, 1668, and he married, second, 4 mo.
12, 1670, Jane Sadler, of Lagenby, Yorkshire. To this marriage were born seven
children, five at Stanghah, and two in Bucks County.
He had purchased, while a resident of Yorkshire, 500 acres of land, in
the present township of Wrightstown, (then the extreme frontier of the English
Settlement in Bucks County), including the site of the present [596] village
and meeting house bearing that name, and located thereon immediately on his
arrival. The family spent their first winter in Bucks County in a hastily
constructed dugout, at a short distance west of the Durham Road at Wrightstown
on the road leading to Penna Park, and here were born on 12 mo. (February) 12,
1684-85, the twins, Abraham and Joseph, who with their elder brother John, born
in England, in 1678, represented the male portion of the family in the second
generation. All of them, as well as many of their sons and grandsons, were
prominently identified with public affairs in Bucks County, filling many
important positions in the county and province.
ABRAHAM CHAPMAN, son of John and Jane Chapman, born at Wrightstown, 12
mo. 12, 1684-85, married in 1715 Susan Olden, daughter of William Olden of
Bound Brook, New Jersey, and to them were born eight children, John, Abraham,
John, Jane, Thomas, Benjamin, Elizabeth, and Joseph.
JOHN CHAPMAN, son of Abraham and Susan (Olden) Chapman, born in
February, 1720, was the first of the Chapman family to locate in Upper Bucks.
The date of his arrival in upper Bucks County from Wrightstown is somewhat
uncertain. He married about 1740, Mary Twining, born about 1720, daughter of
Stephen and Margaret (Mitchell) Twining. Stephen Twining was born in Eastham,
Mass., December 30, 1684, and came to Bucks County in 1695, with his parentst
Stephen and Abigail (Young) Twining. Stephen Twining, father of Mary Chapman,
too up 500 acres of land in Springfield Township, near Sprintown, in 1738, and
erecting a mill thereon, lived there for a number of years, but finally
returned to Wrightstown, where he died in 1772. John Chapman and Mary, his
wife, either accompanied or followed her parents to Springfield Township, and
resided there for several years. No certificate appears on the records of
Richland Meeting, and it is therefore apparent that they arrived prior to the
organization of the Monthly Meeting in 1743. On November 16, 1758, Stephen
Twining and Margaret, his wife, conveyed to their son-in-law, John Chapman, 110
acres in Springfield adjoining the mill property and plantation of Twining and
the land of Isaac Kirk and others. On February 20, 1761, John Chapman, of
Springfield, Esquire, and Mary, his wife, conveyed 104 acres of this tract to
Jacob Kockert. John Chapman, Jr., is then mentioned as an adjoining land
owner, and probably acquired the remaining 6 acres.
On 9 mo. 17, 1761, John Chapman and wife and several of their children
were granted a certificate by Richland Monthly Meeting to Wrightstown. John
Chapman evidently met with a violent or sudden death in Wrightstown in 1766.
Letters of administration were granted on his estate to his widow, Mary, on
January 17, 1767, Stephen Twining and John Mitchell becoming her sureties. The
Inventory of his estate was made December 16, 1766, and amounted to £25 10s.
The widow and administratrix filed her account March 14, 1768, and takes credit
for the following items: —
“Paid William Doyle, Coroner, 2 2s 0d”
“Paid Cadwallader Evans, Doctor, 3 8s 6d”
John Chapman being mentioned as “Esquire” in the deed of 1761, — it is
evident that he was a Justice of the Peace at that date, it being the universal
custom to so designate a justice. He is referred to in one instance as a
Surveyor, and probably followed that profession, as did many of his uncles and
cousins.
Mary Chapman, the widow, survived her husband for thirty years, and
died in Wrightstown in 1796. Her will dated 6 mo. 20, 1786, was probated 6 mo.
26, 1797. It makes her son James and nephew John Hillborn executors, and names
her sons James, Robert, Abraham and Charles, and daughters Elizabeth Black,
Sarah Chapman, and Susanna Chapman, and granddaughters Mary and Margaret
Ashton, and Agnes and Elizabeth Vance. Her two daughters Mary and Myra were
evidently deceased. Mary had married 1 mo. 13, 1763, Thomas Ashton, (See No.
5, page 47), and Myra had married in 1780 John Vance, as shown by the records
of Richland Monthly Meeting. There evidently was a son John, who married
Hannah Antrim, 11 mo. 30, 1769. He was probably the John Chapman, Jr.,
referred to in the deed of 1761. His name does not appear on the records of
Richland Meeting so far as we can learn, but on the minutes of the Women’s
Meeting Hannah Chapman is granted a certificate of removal 10 mo. 17, 1773.
Her destination is not given. But on 3 mo. 21, 1776, she brought her
certificate back to Richland from Ohio, and on 7 mo. 18, 1778, took another
certificate to some unnamed place. The History of the Twining Family states
that John Chapman, Jr., removed to Kentucky. By deed dated June 10, 1781,
James Chapman and Rebecca his wife, John Black and Elizabeth his wife, Charles
Chapman and Elizabeth his wife, Robert Chapman, Susanna Chapman, Sarah Chapman,
and Abraham Chapman, “all of Bucks County,” conveyed to their mother their
right of reversion in 50 acres of land in Springfield, devised to Mary by her
father Stephen Twining for life and then to revert to her children. Little is
known of any of these children excepting of James. None of the other children
seemed to have remained in Richland, although Myra Chapman brought a
certificate to Richland in 1755, and was married there to John Vance in 1780,
and Elizabeth Black also brought a certificate from Wrightstown to Richland in
1770. Charles [598] Chapman lived and died in Wrightstown Township. He
married Elizabeth Linton, in 1775, and left a number of children.
JAMES CHAPMAN, son of John and Mary (Twining) Chapman, born about 1740,
was doubtless included in the certificate which the parents took from Richland
to Wrightstown in 1761. He married at Burlington Meeting, New Jersey, about
1770, Rebecca Burr, daughter of Joseph and Ann Burr, of Burlington. Joseph
Burr was, about that date, the purchaser of a large tract of land in Richland
lying south of the borough of Quakertown, on which his son Robert settled,
bringing a certificate from Richland in 1777. James Chapman brought a
certificate from Philadelphia to Richland which was received 4 mo. 18, 1771.
His wife Rebecca produced a certificate from Burlington Monthly Meeting in 11
mo., 1771. They probably settled for a time on a part of her father’s land in
Lower Richland, but no deed appears of record to them. On February 22, 1787,
James and Rebecca Chapman of Richland conveyed to John Lester 18 acres of land
in that locality, adjoining land of Morris Morris and Abel Roberts, which James
Chapman had mortgaged to the Land Office on January 31, 1776. James Chapman
was a surveyor and scrivener. He evidently made many surveys in Upper Bucks
and Northampton County and wrote most of the deeds and wills between the years
1796 and 1820. He is given a special legacy as a “friend” in the will of
Joseph Erwin of Erwinna in 1803, and probably accompanied the testator and his
father Arthur Erwin in their surveys of immense tracts of land in Bucks County
and elsewhere in Pennsylvania and in Steuben County, New York. Shortly prior
to his death, James Chapman and his wife removed, with their daughter Elizabeth
Iden and her husband to Buckingham and located on a farm adjoining the village
of Mechanicsville, where he died in 1821, leaving a will dated December 2,
1820, which was probated August 20, 1821, in which he directs that all his real
and personal estate be sold and proceeds invested in mortgages, the interest
thereon to be paid to his widow for life, with the right to use the principal
if necessary for her support. After her death the residue was to be equally
divided between his daughters Elizabeth Iden and Abigail Chapman, and his
granddaughter Julia Maria Chapman. His will states:----“have advanced to my
son, John Chapman his full share, therefore cannot give him anything.” The
inventory of his estate includes an order on the Treasurer of Bucks County for
$185 and over $6,000 in bonds. The date of death of his widow had not been
ascertained. His daughter Abigail never married and died at an advanced age in
Buckingham about [page 599] 1856. On the birth records of Richland Meeting
appear the birth of three children of James and Rebecca (Burr) Chapman, viz.----
Jacob Abbot, b. 2-19–1773
Elizabeth, b. 9-8--1776; m. Samuel Iden. (See No. 9, page 279)
Abigail, b. 12-31–1779
[END]
David Wallace Tourison, Sheridan Wyoming, 18 Feb 2002
John Chapman (1740-1800)
