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Edward Chapin, Esq.
Edward Chapin, Esq., was for fifty-five years practicing attorney in the courts of York
County, and for the larger portion of that period an acknowledged leader of the bar.
He was born in Rocky Hill, Conn., on the 19th day of February, A. D., 1799. On both sides
he was descended from a long line of distinguished ancestry. His maternal great
grandfather was the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, for many years president of the college
of New Jersey, and the ablest of American theologians. His theological works have given
him a world wide reputation. His maternal grandfather was Jonathan Edwards, familiarly
known as “the second President Edwards,” who was president of Union College. Both were,
like Mr. Chapin, graduates of Yale College. His father, the Rev. Calvin Chapin,
D. D., was a recognized leader in the Congregational Church of Connecticut. He was
president of Union College, and was the originator of and pioneer in the movement for the
prohibition by law of all traffic in intoxicating liquor. Of this cause he was the earnest
advocate during his whole life. He did not live to see it successful, but his work has,
since his death, produced and is now producing good fruit. The Chapin family descended
from Deacon Samuel Chapin, the first of the name to emigrate from England to America. He
came at a very early period, and settled in New England. His descendants, numbering over
4,000, assembled in Springfield, Mass., a few years since. Among them were representatives
from all parts of the United States, many of them distinguished in the professional,
political, and literary walks of life. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and Rev. E. H. Chapin, D.
D., of New York, President Lucius Chapin, of Beloit College, Wisconsin. Hon. Solomon
Foote, United States s!
enator from Vermont, and Dr. J. G. Holland were present. Among the lineal descendants of
Deacon Samuel Chapin is the Adams family of Massachusetts, which has furnished two
presidents of the United States.
Edward Chapin, Esq., graduated at Yale College in the class of 1819. He read law in
Connecticut, and after his admission to the bar there he resided for a time in Binghamton,
N. Y., where his father had large landed interests. He removed to York in 1823, and was
admitted to the York bar on motion of Walter S. Franklin, Esq., on April 10th of that
year. He soon acquired a reputation as an able lawyer and profound thinker, and during his
professional career was engaged in many of the most important causes tried in York and
Adams Counties, especially those involving intricate and difficult legal questions. In the
construction of obscure wills and deeds Mr. Chapin was especially skillful, and he pressed
upon the courts his views on such questions with such force of logic and profundity of
legal learning, that even when unsuccessful, it was usually easier to reject his
conclusions than to demonstrate their incorrectness. Judge Fisher, who presided in the
courts of York County du!
ring eighteen years of Mr. Chapin’s practice here, has said that his legal arguments were
the ablest and most thorough and exhaustive he ever listened to.
Mr. Chapin was an intimate personal friend of Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, who practiced law in
the adjoining county of Adams during part of Mr. Chapin’s professional life. They were
each in the habit of obtaining the assistance of the other in causes of unusual magnitude
or difficulty. One of the latest and most important causes in which they both appeared,
was the Ebert will case, an issue framed to determine the validity of the will of Martin
Ebert. Messrs. Evans & Mayer, of York, and Hon. Samuel Hepburn, of Carlisle, appeared
for the propounders of the will; and Messrs. Chapin and Stevens for the contestants. It
was a contest of intellectual and professional giants, to which the magnitude of the
interests involved, as well as the reputation of counsel concerned, attracted great public
interest. Though unsuccessful in winning his cause, Mr. Chapin’s address to the jury has
been pronounced, by competent judges who listened to it with delight, the most eloquent
o!
ratorical appeal ever made to a jury within their recollection.
Mr. Chapin was not what is called “a case lawyer.” A close reasoner, a profound thinker,
deeply versed in the principles underlying the science of law, his arguments contained few
citations of authority and few references to text books. He was always listened to, both
in the county court and in the supreme court, with the respectful attention his great
professional learning and ability deserved.
Mr. Chapin was a great reader. He possessed a considerable knowledge of most branches of
natural science. His learning and culture embraced a wide field.
As a legal practitioner his conduct was not only above reproach or suspicion of
unfairness or impropriety, but he rejected as beneath him many of the methods resorted to
by practitioners who are regarded as reputable. He once told the writer of this sketch,
and his life bore witness to the truth of the statement, that he never, during his whole
professional life, solicited or sought directly or indirectly the business or employment
of any individual. Content with the business that his talents and reputation brought, he
used no artifice to extend his clientage.
He was the counsel of the York & Maryland Line Railroad Company from the inception of
that enterprise, and of the Northern Central Railroad Company, into which it afterward
merged from the time of his death.
Mr. Chapin’s delight and recreation was in the cultivation of fruits, flowers and
vegetables. He was extremely fond of gunning, and his portly form, armed with a gun which
few men could hold to their shoulder, was a familiar figure about Peach Bottom in the
ducking season.
Mr. Chapin died on the 17th of March 1869, leaving to survive him a widow, since
deceased, a daughter, married to Edward Evans, Esq., and a son Edward, now a practicing
attorney at the York bar.
Taken from the book, “History of York County, Illustrated 1886” by John Gibson, Historical
Editor