Samuel Chapin

One of the leading first settlers of Springfield, and the man the Saint-Gaudens statue The Puritan was made to honour. The family descends from him through his son Japhet, whose great-granddaughter Abigail Munn married Lt. Jonathan Chapin, and perhaps a second time through his eldest son David (see Jonathan Chapin (1711)).

Paignton. He was baptized at Paignton, Devon, on 8 Oct 1598, "Samuel s of John Chapin," and married Cicely Penny there in February 1623/4; their son David was christened on 4 Jan 1624/5. The will of Cicely's father, Henry Penny, baker, in 1630 names "Cicelly Chapin my daughter" and the grandchildren David, Katherine and Sarah Chapin (source).

Roxbury. He came to New England by 1635, "probably with his father and family." A Roxbury record shows him with 24 acres and "eight persons in his family, himself, wife, father and five children"; in 1641 he bought a house and lot and became a freeman. He had perhaps known William Pynchon in England, and Pynchon probably drew him west (source): his son Japhet was baptized at Roxbury in October 1642, and the family was at Springfield by January 1642/3 (source).

Springfield. He was one of the town's first board of five selectmen, chosen on 26 Sept 1644, and "held the office of Selectman continuously from 26 September 1644, to 22 November 1652." When William Pynchon, convicted of heresy over his book, went back to England in 1652, the General Court commissioned John Pynchon, Elizur Holyoke and Samuel Chapin as magistrates, with "full power and authority to govern the inhabitants of Springfield; to hear and determine all cases and offenses, both civil and criminal, and to inflict all punishments not reaching life, limb, or banishment" (source). He helped lay out "the plantations that became Northampton and Hadley." He is first called deacon in the records on 21 Feb 1650, and he "conducted the Sabbath services, including preaching, for several years when the church lacked a pastor." In the meeting-house his wife's seat was assigned "alonge with Mrs. Glover, and Mrs. Hollyock," the minister's wife and Pynchon's daughter (source). In 1650 Pynchon's warrant for the Indian who had stolen "her best new kersey petticote" from his daughter Sarah, the wife of Rowland Thomas, told the constable "you shall not use violence" (source).

He gave his lands to his sons in his lifetime and lived with Japhet at Chicopee. His children were David (bp. 1624/5, d. Boston 1672), Catherine, Sarah, Henry, Josiah, Japhet and Hannah (source).

King Philip's War. On the night of 4 Oct 1675, warned that Springfield was to be attacked while Major Pynchon had its soldiers at Hadley, the townspeople "took refuge in the three fortified houses. Among the numbers were some of the older men of the community, including Deacon Samuel Chapin, Rev. Pelatiah Glover, Jonathan Burt, Lieut. Thomas Cooper, Thomas Miller, and others," as Burt's history of the town tells it (The First Century of the History of Springfield, 1:129). The town burned the next day. Pynchon's letter of 5 October names among the houses lost "Mr. Glovers & John Hitchcocks & Goodman Stewarts, burnt downe with Barnes, corne & all they had" (1:131): John Hitchcock was the husband of the deacon's daughter Hannah, and his younger brother Luke Hitchcock was the grandfather of Anna (Hitchcock) Chapin. On 12 October Capt. Samuel Appleton stationed "Capt. Sill and his company" at Springfield for the town's security, and on 20 November thirty-nine of Sill's men were left there in garrison for the winter (Soldiers in King Philip's War, pp. 147, 268). Between those dates, on 11 Nov 1675, the deacon died, about seventy-seven years old: "Deacon Chapin did not see the town rebuilt," and Japhet wrote, "My father was taken out of this troubelsom world the 11 day of November about eleven of the clock in the eve, 1675" (source).

The Puritan. In 1881 Chester W. Chapin, railroad man and congressman, commissioned Augustus Saint-Gaudens to make a statue of his ancestor, unveiled at Springfield on 24 Nov 1887 and now in Merrick Park. "St. Gaudens' statue, in figure and costume is intended as an ideal of Dea. Samuel Chapin as given by tradition current among his descendants for there is of his face and features no oral or written record in existence" (source).

Research: Patricia Hatten's Browne–Chapin side: the pedigree, notable ancestors and famous kin; the war: King Philip's War: the Connecticut valley, the Colony of Connecticut, Long Island and New Paltz.