Wikipedia, "Samuel Chapin"

Encyclopedia article on Deacon Samuel Chapin (c. 1598 - 11 Nov 1675) of Springfield, read in October 2026. His baptism at Paignton, Devon, “is recorded as October 8, 1598”; “On February 9, 1623/4, Samuel married Cicely Penny.” The family lived at Roxbury until the close of 1642 and was at Springfield by January 1642/3. “Samuel Chapin held the office of Selectman continuously from 26 September 1644, to 22 November 1652,” when he became one of three Commissioners who “had 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.” He “appears to have been a deacon as early as 1650,” and died in November 1675, shortly after Springfield was burned in King Philip’s War. “In 1881, Chester W. Chapin, a railroad tycoon, congressman and Chapin descendant, commissioned master sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens to produce a work memorializing his ancestor. The sculpture, most commonly known as The Puritan, is currently sited in Springfield’s Merrick Park.” Its list of descendants includes Presidents Grover Cleveland and William Howard Taft, Harriet Beecher Stowe, J. P. Morgan, T. S. Eliot, Roy D. Chapin and Harry Chapin.