Other Events and Attributes:

• Note: Dec 1842
• Census: 5 Aug 1850, Vevay Township, Ingham, MI
• Census: 2 Jul 1860, Lyons, Ionia, MI

Notes:

Note:
From Ingham and Eaton Co., MI History
Almon M. CHAPIN, a native of Massachusetts, and for some time a resident of Livingston Co., N.Y., (had lived also in Onondaga County), left the latter State with his family in December, 1842, and came with teams through Northern Ohio to Michigan, the trip occupying eighteen days. The household goods had been sent by water to Detroit. The family arrived in Vevay on or about the 1st of January, 1843, and moved into a log house which was built by William AUSTIN and was then vacant. The snow lay very deep on the ground, and, soon after they occupied the house and built a fire therein, the melting snow broke down the roof. It was repaired, and the family lived in the house until the following October, when they moved into a frame house, which is now the rear portion of the dwelling occupied by Mr. CHAPIN's widow and family. The fine grove in front of the house at present consists of natural trees, which were left purposely when the place as first occupied. A burning log-heap in front of the house destroyed a portion of them (the trees being then but saplings), but enough were preserved to make a beautiful grove, which is now the pride of the locality. Mr. CHAPIN was a model citizen, and one of the most prominent in the township. His death occurred on the 5th of September, 1878, in his home at Chapin's Station, or "Eden."

Census:
1850 census at Vevay, Ingham, MI shows: Almance Chapin, 39, b. MA, farmer; Jane, 36, b. NY; John C. Bliss, 20, b. NY; Hannah Miller, 26, b. NY; children b. NY: Augusta J., 16; Almance, 12; Henry L.; Clarence W., 8; remaining children b. MI: Hulda, 6; Julius W., 2; Barney E., 6/12.

Census:
1860 census at Lyons, Ionia, MI shows: Almon M. Chapin, 49, b. MA, teacher; Jane, 4X, b. NY; Augusta J., 23, teacher, b. NY; Clarence W., 18, clerk, b. NY; Belle, 16; William, 12; Merrie W., 2.

Buried:
Find A Grave e-Memorial

Almon married Jane PEASE on 16 Jul 1835 in Lakeville, Livingston, NY. Jane (daughter of Henry Chapin PEASE and Huldah TILDEN) was born on 31 Mar 1814 in Livonia, Livingston, NY; died on 20 Oct 1892; was buried in Rolfe Cemetery, Vevay Township, Ingham, MI. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Note: 1882
• Note: 12 Mar 1897
• Obituary: 5 Aug 1905

Notes:

Note:
Rev. AUGUSTA J. CHAPIN was ordained the same year with Olympia Brown, and has successfully labored in the West. During the year 1874 she was noticeably engaged in reconciling adverse societies in San Francisco, and was the means of placing that flourishing church now in California upon a solid basis. She was afterward pastor of the Universalist church in [p.427] Pittsburg, Penn., but is now in the West again. She was a member of the first congress of women held in New York, and contributed a paper on "Woman in the Ministry." She has occasionally furnished sermons to the press.

Note:
From the Womens World section of the "Hornellsville Weekly Tribune," March 12, 1897.
"A Woman D. D. "
"The Rev. Dr. Augusta J. Chapin of Chicago has returned from a year's travels in Europe and is now visiting friends in Boston. She is an alumna of the University of Michigan, and is said to be the only woman upon whom has been conferred the degree of doctor of divinity. As a clergyman she has made a creditable record in the various pastorates she has held in Iowa City, Ia.; Lansing, Mich.; Pittsburg; Aurora, Ills.; Omaha and Chicago. She is devoted to her profession and declares that, with all her experience behind her, if it were hers to choose her vocation anew, she would still be a minister."

Died:
From "The Iowa Citizen" newspaper, July 5, 1905:
"Miss Chapin Died in N.Y.
Lady Who Was Formerly Pastor in the Unitarian Church Here is Dead
Many people here will be interested in knowing that Miss Augusta Chapin died July 1 in New York City. Death was caused by pneumonia and the deceased was sixty-nine years old. More than thirty years ago she was pastor in the Unitarian church at this place and subsequently she has held many prominent positions, filling at one time the pulpit of the Universalist church at Mount Vernon. She was a champion of woman's rights."

Buried:
>Find A Grave e-Memorial

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 23 Jun 1870, Vevay Township, Ingham, MI

Notes:

Census:
1870 census at Vevay Township, Ingham, MI shows: || Almond Chapin, 32, farm laborer, b. NY; Rosette, 28, b. MI; Florence M., 6, b. MI; Fanny J., 5, b. MI.

Almon married Rosette M PEASE on 1 Jul 1863 in MI. Rosette was born about 1842 in MI. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1 Jun 1880, Mason, Ingham, MI

Notes:

Census:
1880 census at Mason, Ingham, MI shows: Henry L. Chapin, 40, farmer, b. NY, parents b. MA/NY; Kate, 30, b. ENGLAND, parents b. ENGLAND; children b. MI: Charlotte, 5; Nelly, 2; Harry L., 7/12.

Buried:
Find A Grave e-Memorial

Henry married Kate THOMPSON on 30 Oct 1870 in Portland, Multnomah, OR. Kate was born in Sep 1849 in ENGLAND; died in 1926 in MI; was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery, Mason, Ingham, MI. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 4 Jun 1880, Stanton, Montcalm, MI
• Census: 14 Jun 1900, Ypsilanti, Washtenaw, MI

Notes:

Census:
1880 census at Stanton, Montcalm, MI shows: Clarence W. Chapin, 37, banker, b. NY, parents b. MA/NY; Alice B., 24, b. NY, parents b. NY/NY; Morris B., 1, son, b. MI; Merrick W., 21, brother, bankers clerk, b. MI, parents b. MA/NY; Frank Brown, 20, 2nd cousin, b. MI, parents b. NY/NY, bankers clerk.

Census:
1900 census at Ypsilanti, Washtenaw, MI shows: C. W. Chapin, b. Jul 1842, 58, married 27 years, no occupation listed. b. NY, parents b. NY/NY; Alice B., b. Dec 1854, 45, 3 children born / 3 living, b. NY, parents b. PA/ENGLAND, boarding house keeper; children b. MI: Morris B., b. Jul 1879, 22, typesetter; Wells, b. XXX(Illegible) 1885, 15; Howard, b. Jul 1890, 10.

Buried:
Find A Grave e-Memorial

Clarence married Alice BENNETT on 30 Aug 1874 in Greenville, Montcalm, MI. Alice was born in 1855 in NY; died on 4 Mar 1939; was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery, Mason, Ingham, MI. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Lorenzo COREY. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 16 Jun 1900, Vevay Township, Ingham, MI
• Obituary: 20 Jun 1914

Notes:

Note:
From Pioneer History of Ingham County.

The Chapin farm became well known throughout the country because of the fact that J.W. Chapin, son of Almon M. Chapin, developed on it the largest sugar bush in the state of Michigan.

It is a far cry from the charmingly primitive "sugar bush" of fiction to the business-like proposition of modern farm life, but it is safe to say that not even the most advanced agriculturist elsewhere has a trolley line and telephone connection from his residence to his sugar bush, as has J.W. Chapin of Eden (1912). Eden is a little hamlet four miles south of Mason, and the Chapin estate of 360 acres, which has been in the family for many years, is the largest farm for many miles around. The Lansing-Jackson branch of the Michigan United Railway runs through the farm, passing close to the house and also the sugar bush one-half mile away. A private telephone line runs from the sugar house to the residence and a switch here gives connections with all the neighboring towns. The Jackson-Saginaw branch of the Michigan Central Railroad is only a few rods away on the opposite side of the house from the M.U.R.

Mr. Chapin now taps 2,200 trees every season, producing from 6,000 to 9,000 pounds of syrup and sugar each year. This is shipped to private parties all over the country, most of whom have standing orders for their year's supply. As proof of the quality of his products Mr. Chapin shows medals won by his exhibit at the St. Louis Exposition and a diploma received at the Pan-American. The sugar orchard comprises 80 acres of a 140 acre wood lot, and besides the service they have given the Chapin family for seventy years there is proof that they yielded their sweetness for the benefit of the Indians long before the advent of the white men. The remains of bark troughs and wooden spiles, with the added evidence of the scars to be found on the mammoth maple trees, go to show that the red man had knowledge of this valuable asset and made use of it.

It is said that the Indians made pilgrimages to this part of the county every spring, where they camped through the maple sugar season and "milked" the numerous sugar bushes in this vicinity. The crude methods they employed in manufacturing the sugar, which was said to be black and full of leaves and twigs, were of course the best they knew, and it makes one wonder what their sensations would have been could they have taken a peep into Mr. Chapin's modern and model sap house and watched the work done there. Let us see how this plant was conducted in 1913. The work began early in the winter when the men commenced to fill the huge shed at the sugar camp with wood ready to feed the furnaces. Then the first warm day that promised spring began the work of tapping the trees. Iron spouts were driven into holes previously bored in the trees about three feet from the ground. On these were hung tin sap pails, with wooden covers so adjusted as to exclude everything but the pure, limpid sap. The larger trees carry two or three pails. Two teams are kept busy gathering sap, each drawing a steel tank holding several barrels of the fluid, and three men work with each outfit. The tanks are mounted on runners, as they are more practical for use in snow and mud than wheels. Deep snow often makes the work of gathering sap very difficult.

The sugar house contains two 20 foot evaporators, with 25-foot smokestacks, and to attend to the fires and watch the boiling sap keeps one man busy.

The teams bring the sap to an elevation beside the sugar camp, where it is emptied through a hose into big 50 foot barrel tanks. From this supply a constant stream flows into the shallow pans of the evaporator. These pans are about 2 x 5 feet in size, and are connected with each other by tubing at the ends, so that the boiling sap is kept constantly circulating. After making the circuit of the first evaporator it is piped to the other.

The furnace man's chief anxiety is to boil down the sap as soon as possible after it is brought in as the making of the finest quality of syrup demands that the sap be gathered once a day or oftener, and used immediately. Openings in the roof of the sugar house allow clouds of steam from the boiling pans to escape. When the syrup reaches the proper consistency it is strained and allowed to settle. For sugar the syrup is boiled again then molded into five pound cakes.

The output depends on the length of the season, whic is never two years like. Extremely cold weather changing rapidly to warm spring weather oftentimes starts the buds on the trees and makes a very short season. Work in the sugar bush does not stop when the sap ceases to run, as then the thousands of pails must be overhauled and scalded, then packed away to await the next season's run.

Five years later sees this all changed. In 1914 Mr. Chapin was working with a hay fork in his barn when the machine fell and struck him, and death followed instantaneously. Mr. Chapin, in addition to conducting this sugar bush mentioned, worked about 200 acres of farm land in a superior manner, and was considered an authority on all matters of an agricultural nature. After his death Mrs. Chapin and the son who remained home found the farm land all they could attend to, and when the fuel shortage struck the county in 1918 the City of Lansing bought the wood lot, which included the sugar bush, to supply its municipal wood yard, and this wonderful landmark containing trees centuries old went up in smoke. This was a blow to the maple sugar industry in Ingham county, which was augmented by the sale of several other good-sized, well-known sugar orchards in this vicinity which went for the same purpose among them the one of the Fuller farm, which was also known to the Indians, and had yielded annual sugar crops for a long time as the one on the Chapin farm.

Mrs. Chapin's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Asher Lyon, came to Vevay in the early days from Geneva, N.Y. Mr. Lyon died some years ago in Gratiot county, where he had lived for some years, but Mrs. Lyon and their eleven children are still living and recently held a family reunion at the Chapin home in Eden, beneath the original forest trees that surround the old homestead.

Since the death of Mr. Chapin in 1914 Mrs. Chapin has conducted the large farm very successfully, and last spring was elected justice of the peace for Vevay, on the Republican ticket, over her oldest son who ran against her. Like his father, J.W. Chapin was active in the work of the Ingham County Agricultural Society, the Farmers' Club and the County Pioneer and Historical Society; in the latter societies Mrs. Chapin has held offices several times.

Besides his widow, Mr. Chapin was survived by six children Almon M., named for his grandfather, owns a farm adjoining the old homestead; Alice, who graduated from the State Normal College at Ypsilanti and the University of Pennsylvania, later taking post graduate courses at Columbia and Harvard Universities. She has taught for a number of years, a part of the time being in charge of the physically deficient children in the Detroit schools and those of Minneapolis, Minn. She is now superintendent of an extensive Settlement House in Minneapolis which is supported by the wealthy people of that city.

Julius, a graduate of M.A.C., for some years county agricultural agent in various parts of the state, but now engaged in business for himself in Traverse City, Mich. Ethel, for many years a teacher in St. Johns, now taking a course in a Nurses Training School in Chicago University. Warren, employed in Detroit. Martha, a graduate of Ypsilanti Normal and Olivet College, now teaching.

The Chapin family was one of the first in this section to establish a state game refuge on their land, which is kept up in strict accordance with the law.

Census:
1900 census at Vevay, Ingham, MI shows: Julius Chapin, b. Apr 1848, 52, married 18 years, b. MI, parents b. MA/MA, farmer; Carrie L., b. Dec 1861, 38, 6 children born / 6 living, b. NY, parents b. NJ/NY; children b. MI: Almon M., b. Sep 1883, 16; Alice, b. Apr 1885, 15; Ethel, b. Nov 1886, 13; Julius, b. Oct 1888, 11; Warren, b. Jan 1891, 9; Martha, b. Aug 1899, x/12 (illegible).

Died:
Julius was killed when a hay fork fell, piercing his neck and heart.

Buried:
Find A Grave e-Memorial

Julius married Carrie LYON on 6 Apr 1882 in Stanton, Montcalm, MI. Carrie (daughter of Asher LYON and Martha FENTON) was born on 21 Dec 1861 in NY; died on 11 Jan 1937 in Eden, Ingham, MI; was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery, Mason, Ingham, MI. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Buried:
Find A Grave e-Memorial

Notes:

Buried:
Find A Grave e-Memorial

Other Events and Attributes:

• Note: 1900, Toledo, Lucas, OH

Notes:

Note:
Merrick and Della are found in the 1900, 1910 and 1920 census in Toledo, Ohio. She is listed as a school teacher and he as a postal worker, first a clerk, later a money order clerk and finally a superintendent. They have no children.

Buried:
Find A Grave e-Memorial

Merrick married Della Belle BROWN on 1 Oct 1891 in Portland, Ionia, MI. Della was born on 28 Apr 1864 in MI; died in 1947; was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery, Mason, Ingham, MI. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]