Sacramento County
Biographies
ALMON CHAPMAN
ALMON
CHAPMAN.--A successful, esteemed pioneer whose life-story is well worthy of
record and repetition, is Almon Chapman, the well-known printer of Chicago,
and now an honored citizen of Fair Oaks Colony, where he has resided in pleasant
retirement since July 4, 1897. He was
born in Oneida County,
N. Y., on December 3, 1839, the second of twelve children, seven boys and five
girls, of the late Thomas and Rosetta Higley Chapman,
four of whose sons served the Union under Old Glory in
the War of the Rebellion. His parents
were born in western New York,
his father in 1798 and his mother in 1818.
The father was a carpenter and joiner by trade, and learned the trade in
New York. The four sons who served in the Civil War
were William W., who was with the 3rd Wisconsin Infantry, as was
also Orange Howard; and Eugene, together with our subject, who enlisted while
in Kansas in Company D of the 17th Kansas
volunteer Infantry, commanded by Capt. R. D. Monley. Almon Chapman saw four months of active
service, and at the close of the war returned to Wisconsin.
In
1879, he removed to Lecompton, Kans.,
and making this town his headquarters, worked on flat-boats on the Kansas
River. Then he went into
the lumber camps, and later finally found what he really wanted—a job as a
press boy in a printing shop. He got
work from the editor of the “Lecompton Democrat,” on which he was employed for
two years. Removing to Atchison,
Kans., he was there associated with Col.
John A. Martin, the owner of the “Atchison Champion,” Republican, acting as
office clerk for several years, and there also was published one of his first
attempts at producing “copy.” For two
years he was assistant postmaster at Atchison.
He
entered the printing business as a journeyman, having learned his trade at
Lecompton and Atchison, and later removed to Chicago,
where he was engaged in an undertaking of some magnitude in the printing line,
and as proprietor enjoyed a very lucrative business for about twenty years.
At
Rockford Seminary, September 10, 1878, Mr. Chapman was married to Miss Amelia
M. Hollister, a niece of the late Anna P. Sill, the founder and first principal
of the famous Rockford Female Seminary, at Rockford, Ill.,
now Rockford College. Anna P. Sill was born in 1816, in New
York State, and was a
descendant from John Sill, who came to Massachusetts in
1637, and also a descendant of the Hon. Jedediah Peck, distinguished in his day
in the Empire State
as both a legislator and a judge.
Elsewhere in this history will be found a fuller account of the
life-work of this eminent aunt of Mrs. Chapman.
Mrs. Chapman graduated from Rockford College,
and at the Seminary at Rockford
followed her professional work, that of a tutor in art and music. She was associated with her aunt for many
years in the successful conducting of this institution of higher learning, and
these years she regards as the happiest of her years of experience as a
teacher. Two sons, born of this
fortunate union, bade good-bye to the world in early life; Robert Sill passing
away at the age of five, and Ralph when only ten months old.
Mr.
and Mrs. Chapman came out to the Golden State
in 1897, in order to enjoy the benefits of a milder climate, and to both of
these worthy people Dame Nature, as expressed through her lavish gifts to California,
has been most kind. Their orchard
embraces eighteen and one-half acres, and is pleasantly situated on the Winding
Way, about twenty miles to the northeast of the
capital. Both Mr. and Mrs. Chapman do
considerable writing; and with their pens they have produced much that is of
benefit to others. Mr. Chapman is a
member of Kilpatrick Post, No. 712, of the G. A. R., at Austin,
Ill.; and he belongs to both the Masons and the Odd
Fellows, of Chicago.
Transcribed by Barbara Gaffney.
Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With
Biographical Sketches, Page 544.
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles,
CA. 1923.
© 2007 Barbara Gaffney.