Henry Charles Chapman, 1825 - 1894

CHAPMAN, SALMONS

Posted By: Dave Jackson (email)
Date: 7/10/2005 at 01:44:25

Henry Charles Chapman and Mary Ann Salmons Chapman settled near Hinkletown, Fillmore Township, Iowa County in 1857. The interesting family history below traces their times from his shoemaking apprenticeship in England, arrival at New York in 1851, settlement at Hinkletown, the building of a log cabin on the English River, toils of raising their family, building new homes, and through 1914 when Mary Ann died. Their story is the testament to many of the Iowa settlers, who struggled with the land and hardships of early Iowa.

The Family of Henry Charles Chapman - by Nellie Maude Bever

Henry Charles Chapman was born in Upham, Cambridgeshire, England on January 11, 1825. He died in his home on May 29, 1894 at age 69 years, 4 months, and 18 days. Henry’s wife, Mary Ann Salmons Chapman, was born May 5, 1827, also in Cambridgeshire, England. She died at her home August 31, 1914, at age 87 years, 3 month, and 26 days.

Henry came from a large (perhaps well-to-do) family, and as such, he probably had more education than the average person of the time. There were at least four brothers, John, William, Thomas, and Charles. There is also mention of three sisters: Betsy, Susan, and Emma. Little else is known about the family. It is possible that Henry had a small store of money when he came to the US in 1851, as he was able to set up shop in Vienna, NY, and in two years' time, send for his wife and two sons, whom he previously left behind.

It appears that Henry was the only one in his family adventurous enough to shoulder the tools of his trade and strike out to make a place for himself in a new land. He was 19 years old when he finished his six years of apprenticeship to a London shoemaker who taught him his trade. He returned to his hometown where he set up shop, conducting it successfully. He was a skillful workman, expert in the use of all kinds of leather. He must have been a good shoemaker and a good businessman as well. He made footwear for the workers of the region and fine boots for the gentry as well.

Once he finished a pair of boots for the lord of the land when he had the misfortune to spoil one boot. The pair was setting beside his bench, waiting to be claimed. He accidentally dropped his sharp leather knife and it cut a long slit in the leather of the boot. The leather was very expensive and he had only a few cuttings scattered around. After some thought, he contrived a fancy insert for each boot top to hide the cut, hoping that it would go unnoticed. The lord was very proud of his boots.

When he came to the US, Henry brought his tools -hammer, awl, wax ends and shoe lasts, trusting to the new land for good leather and people needing shoes. He must have found them very useful, and he gave them good service.
Mary Ann Salmons was the daughter of a minister, presumably a Wesleyan follower. Mary Ann said they never knew anything about their father. They had no idea where he came from, his nationality, or anything about his early life. He died suddenly leaving his wife with a family of daughters. Some way they managed, as families must under such conditions, and they married. From some things she had said, apparently Mary Ann worked as a domestic at various times but there is nothing clear about them.

When she was quite young, she had a young Jewish lover, a boy who came through the country selling goods from a pack. Whenever, he came, he brought lovely gifts to Mary Ann, whose mother had no desire for a son-in-law who was always traveling over the country with a pack on his back. She did fancy the young shoemaker in the village, Henry Chapman. She arranged a marriage between him and Mary Ann, who was forced to return the beautiful gifts from her Jewish lover and send him packing. In those days, parent's word was law, and Mary Ann was married to the shoemaker; a marriage that led her away from everything and everybody she had known and loved, into a land of untold hardship. One can only wonder how much homesickness and sorrow she had to endure. Like Henry, she had more schooling than many of her friends and neighbors. She had a knack for nursing, and she must have been adaptable, or she never would have survived.

Henry and Mary Ann were people of small stature. Henry was less than five feet tall, and slender, and Mary Ann was even smaller than he. Their bodies thickened with age, but they were never large. The first two sons, Charles Henry and Benjamin Salmons were five and three years old when they joined their father in Vienna, NY, where they lived for about four years. During that time Frederick Obadiah was born. Soon after Frederick's birth, the family again moved west. They lived for a short time in a small town, or fort, near the Mississippi River. A shoemaker could always make a living, and fishing was good there. In his adult years, Charles was heard to say that he ate so many fish during the stop beside the Mississippi that, "He couldn't look another fish in the face." But this was not the stopping place.

Again the journey west began, ending in 1857 for all time as far as they were concerned. They made their way to Iowa County, IA, settling in Fillmore Township, post office Foote. There Mary Ann and three of their sons lived out their days. The family settled into a snug one-room log cabin near the English River. It was small but it was their own and they had few possessions. A fireplace at one end provided heat for comfort and preparation of food. At the other end was a big double bed under which a trundle bed was hidden for the day. This gave sleeping quarters for the small children and the parents. The big boys climbed the ladder into the attic above, a snug place in cold weather, a hot one in summer. The cabin had a puncheon floor, which are logs split in half, laid close together, split side-up. This made for a warm floor, fitting snugly to the sides and end of the building. There were no mopboards to give a smooth finish. A trap door near the big bed gave access to the root cellar below. This door was not hinged. It was a covering for the hole and fitted onto a framework made for that purpose. It was easily moved and was very useful in cold weather. Other furnishings were probably only the most needed, a crude table, some chairs or benches, some storage for dishes and utensils. It took little to make up a home in those days.

They must have found a fairly well settled community. Henry built a small shop near the cabin and did a thriving business. People always needed shoes and shoes always needed mending. Three children were born on the Iowa farm, very likely all of them in the log cabin. Alfred was born August 4, 1857; Emma on December 25, 1860; Joseph on March 28, 1865. It may be that Joseph was born in the house that they built farther from the river near the west side of the place, but it is certain that Alfred and Emma were born in the cabin.

This home in the woods must have been Paradise to 30-year-old Henry and 28-year-old Mary Ann, coming from a land where the fish and game belonged to the gentry, and there was a heavy penalty to pay if one snared a rabbit or angled for a fish. Here game of all kinds was plentiful. There were deer, wild turkeys, prairie chickens, timber squirrels, cottontail rabbits, free meat for the snaring. The river held good fish, the bees furnished honey and the soil was rich. No doubt they had food beyond their wildest dreams.

But the cabin was built too near the river. All went well for some years, probably about 1861. One night, all were snug in bed, the big boys upstairs, the little boys, Fred and Alfred, in the trundle bed and the baby Emma in bed with her parents. Alfred, about four years old, woke to find his bet wet, really wet. He yelled that his bed was wet. His father shouted, "If it is wet, you know how it got that way! Now shut up!" So Alfred shut up, but not for long. The bed got wetter and wetter until the boy could stand it no longer. Again he wailed that his bed was wet. Now when Henry told his children to do something, they did not talk back to him. Henry was a violent man. Henry sprang from bed to settle the young boy, and plunged through the trap door into the cellar full of cold river water.

Fortunately, though, he bobbed back up through the opening where the trap door cover had floated off. Though the trundle bed was soaked, the water was not yet deep in the room. There was a great scrambling to get out of the house. The cattle were lowing in their pens, and everything was awash! Henry and the big boys fastened the oxen to the wagon and brought it to the house where they loaded it with bedding and supplies and started for dryer land. The cattle swam and waded two miles to a neighboring farm where the earth was dry. Loosening the oxen from the make-shift boat, they put them into a corral, made the place comfortable for sleeping and finished out the night there. It was two weeks before they got back home.

As the logs in the puncheon floor settled, it caused them to be planed constantly to even it out. The shavings and splinters were swept to the ends of the logs and many of them settled into the open spaces between the wall and logs. They were dry, and good for quickening the live coals in the fireplace. Anyone making up the fire knelt and scooped up a double handful of shavings and threw them into the fire. The shavings proved an attraction for rats and squirrels also. They started nesting in there, which wasn't very good. So, Henry set steel traps there and anchored them securely so the catch wouldn't get away. One warm evening Mary Ann knelt down to scoop up a handful of shavings for kindling. Each hand went into a trap, and there she was on her knees unable to get free. Emma was a good-sized child by this time, but she couldn't talk. Her mother sent her to the shop to fetch Henry, who never allowed the children in the shop. Too little to make herself understood, the child was sent back to the house. Her mother again sent her to the shop. Henry then suspected that something was wrong, and returned to the house where he freed Mary Ann from the traps.

Mary Ann's hands were badly damaged and a doctor came to the house to dress them. Of course, the story about the little girl being unable to make her father understand the situation came out. The doctor then examined the little girl. He opened her mouth, and found her tongue-tied. He snipped the cord holding her tongue down. Nobody ever suspected that she might be tongue-tied. Henry claimed that she never stopped talking after that.

After a few years they built another house farther from the river and there they ended their days. This new place was heavily wooded. There were great trees, nuts, thickets of wild fruits, and great bed of wild flowers. Much of these woods remained intact during the lives of Henry and Mary Ann. Small plots were cleared for corn, oats, and vegetable gardens. There was a small apple orchard. Usually there was a row of wooden paint kegs in one-gallon size, sitting along the garden fence in which Henry had planted seeds from especially good-flavored apples.

The kitchen was near the house, fenced all around with a gate near one corner. Just inside the fence, on all four sides were rows of small fruits - raspberries, gooseberries, and red and white currants. There was a huge Locust tree and a cherry tree in front of the house and a clump of Bleeding Hearts that survived many cuttings taken from it to beautify other homes.

The small wooden house had only four rooms for many years, a large room and a small one below the stairs, with the same arrangement above. It was a comfortable friendly house where all children grew to adulthood before moving to homes of their own. Most of them remained in the same locality to the end of their days. This was a home in the woods with small patches cleared for the growing of oats, corn, vegetable and garden - so little of it cleared that the boys were soon able to do the field work required. Anyway, Henry was no farmer; he was a tradesman -trained maker and mender of footwear.

He had his small workshop close to the kitchen door of the house and there did whatever work came to him. Also there were always the tasks of keeping up fences, fishing in the river for the fresh water fish they came to enjoy. And he became an expert at locating bee trees so the family always had a fresh supply of honey, even a few hives in the orchard. There is always plenty for a handyman to do wherever there is a home. At one time he had a shop in South English, a flourishing town some miles away. Each Monday morning he would walk over there, stay the week through and walk home Saturday night, to spend Sunday. He liked South English; he had a good business and he enjoyed the people. He decided it was a good place for him and his family to live. He was a good walker, as most people were in those days, and the journey didn't seem to bother him. He just wanted to live in town. So there he made a deal, trading the farm for what he considered a fine house in the town. When he reached home he told the family that they were going to move, making much of the grand life they would lead.

But he hadn't reckoned on his wife. She said, "No", and all the raging he did made no difference. They had a home, a better one than they had ever dreamed possible, and there she meant for them to stay. She would not sign the deed and all he could do was tell the man the deal was off. Henry was an angry man. His raging made no impression on this woman who had endured much and would endure more. She could not be moved. At last Henry took off, telling them he was moving back to England. Nobody tried to change his mind, so he went back. But he didn't go far and he didn't stay long. He made threats often through the years, and he went away frequently, staying a long time and saying nothing as to his activities during his absence. The family considered it just one of his habits and went on with their daily lives as though that was the way people normally lived.

For all of his fits of temper, he was a public-spirited man, serving as Road Supervisor and a School Director. School terms were only a few weeks in winter when the young people could be spared from home duties, and another few weeks in the Spring for younger children and little beginners.

Hinkletown was a busy village with the usual activities of a country town. An ambitious Irish and English community kept things lively. There was a store where necessities could be obtained, a blacksmith shop, a sawmill where lumber could be made from a man's own logs. It was a long walk through the woods on a cold snowy mornings, but hardship was part of daily life. The children to the west would make a point of stopping at the Chapman house to get warm, and often, were fed pancakes hot from the griddle to help get them warm.

With the exception of Benjamin, the Chapman children went to the Hinkletown school and absorbed whatever learning they could. Little Ben had an unfortunate experience with the teacher the first day of school. For some little thing nobody can remember, the stern man teacher took him up in front of the class, took down his trousers, and whipped him. He never wanted to go back, and his parents saw to it that he never did go back. He never learned to read and write; perhaps he never thought he never would since his eyes were poor and those were the days when nothing was done to help children through such things.

By 1894, the children were all married and the old folks were alone in the little house in the woods. Charles had been off to war, came home safely, married, had a family, and lived near on a farm of his own. Ben had married and gone to Nebraska to live; Fred, Alfred, and Joe all had families and lived on farms. Emma married and followed Ben to NE. Even the grandson, Daved, whom they had reared in their home following the death of his young mother, was no longer with them.

Their sons were busy men, long as the work days were, they still were too short to get all the tasks finished, so that there were fewer visits to the old folks, who felt lost without the old time confusion of a house full of young people.
Since Fred's family lived just a short hop down the lane from the home, they saw most of them every day, and the others came more often than the grandparents realized, but they were lonely. In May of 1894, they decided to attend the Decoration Day observation. They spruced up with new clothes, shined up the buggy and the horse and harness. All ready for a holiday on May 30. But, the day before the holiday, a calf made its way into a neighbor's pasture and had to be brought home. Taking Fred's son Joe with him, Henry went after the calf that was in a pasture near the river. The calf ran here and there with Joe and Henry in pursuit. Overcome by the heat and the violent exercise, Henry fell and died almost instantly. He was sixty-nine and a half years old.

Mary Ann stayed on in the old home. There were plenty of grandchildren to keep her company, sleep with her nights, and helping her with the tasks around the place. She kept her few cows, raised some chickens and her garden as usual.
Soon after coming to Iowa they had affiliated themselves with the Christian Church at Fairview, a country parish southeast of Hinkletown. The children had been baptized in that church and it was their religious home. Soon after Henry's death, Mary Ann became a member of the Little Creek Catholic Church (Hinkletown) and so remained the rest of her days. Her sons were not pleased at the change, but the daughter had no fault to find. If that was Mother's choice, and she was happy, that was the way it should be. She remained a Catholic to the end, and lies in St. Patrick's "Little Creek" Cemetery several miles from Henry's last resting place in Clothier Cemetery, both country cemeteries.

For a number of years Mary Ann remained in her home the whole year through. Wherever she wanted to go, she drove her old white horse and was content to live a busy life among her neighbors, her friends, and her family. She was only sixty-seven when she was widowed, and a sturdy old lady. But, the winters were long, cold, and snowy in Iowa. It took a lot of wood to keep homes warm and a lot of work keeping comfortable in the house. She never kept her house as warm as most people, and though she never seemed to suffer from the cold, it worried the children when she grew older. So, when the first snow came, one of them would bundle her up and take her home with him for the winter where they knew how she was getting along.

Alfred had a motherless family and it is likely he had her more winters than any of them. He had a large comfortable home in Wellman, Iowa, and his children were very good to Grandmother. But, it was a task keeping her after the days grew longer. She was always eager to get home, back to her own house and her own things. As she grew older she had frequent severe illnesses, she had lost two sons, Charles and Fred, the log house began to go to pieces and no one made an effort to repair it. The foundation settled and the sagged; squirrels started making homes there, and various things went wrong.

By that time Mary Ann was in her eighties and she still wanted to be at home, so she went to live with her daughter-in-law, Ardelia and her family. There she ended her days, peacefully slipping away during the night of Aug. 31, 1914, twenty years, four months after Henry's death.

FROM 1881 History of Iowa County:

Chapman, Henry – Farmer, Sec. 34, P.O. Foote. Was born January 11, 1825 in Upham, Cambridgeshire, England, and lived there till thirteen years of age. Then he went to London, where he resided six years and there learned the shoemaker trade. He returned to Cambridgeshire and lived there till 1851, when he emigrated to America and for four years was located in Ontario County, New York. In 1855 he moved to Iowa and settled in this township near where he now lives. Was married to Mary A. Salmons of Cambridgeshire, England, December 24, 1846. Six children were the result of this marriage, Charles H. (born August 27, 1848), Benjaman S. (born March 28, 1850), Frederick O. (born June 6, 1854), Alfred S. (born August 4, 1857), Emma J. (born December 25, 1860), and Joseph S. (born March 28, 1865). Mr. Chapman was one of the earliest settlers in Fillmore Township, and although he came without mean, still by his care and industry he has secured for himself and family a good home of 119 acres of land. He has frequently served his township in the capacity of road supervisor and school director, and has always taken an interest in the promotion of education. His eldest son, Charles H. Chapman, served for four years as a member of company G, Eighth Iowa infantry.

Photographs and additional information at:

http://www.hinkletown.com/chapman.html

History of Hinkletown,Iowa at:

http://www.hinkletown.com