1535944

[Chapman.FTW]

he family bible reports six children. The November 1913 DAR Magazine
states that Giles and his son, Rev. Giles, served in the Revolution from
South Carolina under Col. Waters.

In the middle seventeenth century, the followers of George Fox in
England banded themselves together as the Society of Friends and were
given the derisive name "Quaker" by their enemies. History has accorded
them a special place among those who adhered to their beliefs in spite
of oppression, and their life in England was never easy. When Charles
II was restored to the throne in 1660, Church and State united in
oppressing them; and their persecutions were not significantly
diminished until after the Toleration Act of 1689. Until this Act was
passed, Quakers were not permitted to hold public office or to enter any
profession. The doors of Oxford and Cambridge remained closed to them
until 1871.

As a result of these constrictions, Quakers were forced to seek
vocations in industry and commerce, and many became leaders in the field
of banking. Although a few Quakers attained financial success in
England, it is small wonder that the prospects of a new life in a new
world were a great attraction to most of them.

In 1730, Alexander Ross and Morgan Bryan and a few other Friends were
given permission to begin negotiation for the purchase of 100,000 acres
in Virginia, located along the Opeckan (Opequon) River and thereabouts.
The grant was finally obtained in 1732, but it was not until 1734 that
enough Quaker settlers had moved into the vicinity to establish a
Meeting. In that year, the Opeckan (Hopewell) Meeting for Worship was
established in Frederick County; and in 1735 the Hopewell Monthly
Meeting was established, its place of meeting being located some five
miles north of Winchester, Virginia, and the Harper's Ferry Railroad.
Among the founders of the Hopewell Meeting were Giles and Sarah Chapman.

On the 12th of November, 1735, Giles and Sarah Jackson Chapman received
patents to 400 acres of land on Yorkshireman's Branch in Frederick
County, Virginia. We can only try to calculate the probable date they
left England. Sarah's mother had died in 1733. Giles and Sarah's first
child, Elizabeth Chapman, was born January 28, 1734. When Sarah's
father, Marmaduke Jackson, died in 1735, he stipulated that the Family
Bible should pass to his grand-daughter Elizabeth at her mother's death.
(As a matter of fact, this request was not fulfilled). Since the Bible
came to America with the family, we can deduce that either Marmaduke
Jackson and the Chapmans were in America prior to April 22, 1735 (the
date of his death), or that they waited until later to leave England.
Certainly they could not have left England after the birth of their son
Samuel in September, 1735, and made the voyage to America, then traveled
by wagon train from Philadelphia to Virginia and arrive there two months
later. This fact suggests that they did indeed leave England in 1734,
bringing Marmaduke Jackson with them to America. In all probability,
their ship brought them to Philadelphia, which was not only the largest
port of entry but was also cordial to Quakers. Apparently they were
among the Quakers temporarily attached to the Chester Quarterly Meeting
at Concord, Pennsylvania, before traveling with a large band led by
Alexander Ross to Virginia.

In 1733, a wagon road had been completed linking Philadelphia with
Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Later, it was extended to York and crossed the
Susquehanna River at Wright's Ferry. From York, the settlers cut a
pathway southward, perhaps crossing the Potomac River at Harper's Ferry,
then followed a trail down the Shenandoah Valley which eventually
terminated in the Carolina Piedmont. In 1734, the land of the
Shenandoah Valley was still wild and unculti-vated. Settlers had to
make clearings in the forest before they could build their houses and
barns of the felled logs. Even so, more than 7500 people had crossed
over Cumberland Gap before it had been made wide enough for a wagon to
pass. When the wagons did come, they were either ox-carts or
four-wheeled wagons. So scarce were materials that the horses wore rope
harness, rope traces, and straw collars, and were guided with rope
lines.

Giles and Sarah Chapman were not destined to remain in Frederick County,
Virginia, for long. The unrest which had developed among the Quakers of
Hopewell Meeting can be attributed to several factors. For one thing,
the colony of Friends had grown so rapidly that a decision was made to
divide the Meeting. In addition, the Virginia government was showing
signs of wanting to be rid of the Quakers - a fact which probably
encouraged many of them to seek new homesteads. By August, 1744, when
Sarah and Giles Chapman had disposed of all their holdings in Frederick
County, they had acquired two daughters (Rachel and Sarah) and son
Joseph.

The Quakers kept excellent church records, and, as a general rule, the
vital statistics of Quakers can be found in their records.
Unfortunately, the records of the earlier years of the Hopewell Monthly
Meeting were destroyed by fire, so we have no documentation in them of
these births, deaths, marriages, or transfers to other Meetings. We do
know that a man named Giles Chapman and another named Samuel Chapman are
listed in the tax rolls of Orange County, North Carolina, for the year
1755. ( Samuel would have been twenty years old at that time) Holsinger
states, in History of the Tunkers, that Giles Chapman was in a party led
by Elder Daniel Letterman and Cooper Rowland which immigrated to the
Carolinas in 1760. From these records, we cannot state definitely where
William Chapman was born in 1746 or Giles in 1748. O'Neall, in the
Annals of Newberry, states that Giles Chapman was a native of Virginia.

Records of the land settlement accorded Giles and Sarah Chapman when
they settled in Newberry County, South Carolina between 1760-62 suggest
that they had three sons and three daughters in the home at that time.
Each settler and his wife received 100 acres of land plus 50 additional
acres for each child. Since their son Samuel was twenty-five years old
by that time, he would have been entitled to his own portion of land as
an adult male.

SOURCE: Giles Chapman of Bridlington and His Descendants, by Jesse Pugh
Chapman, Jr. 1976, pages v - viii.

There is quite a history of the Chapman family in the Chapman-Pugh
Genealogy written by Minnie Mae Pugh. This family is well documented in
the Quaker Encyclopedia, Vol. H., by Wm. Wade Hinshaw, Pg. 357, and
also in the "Annals of Newberry," by Johon Belton O'Neall published
1892. Giles Chapman is named as one of the Founding Fathers of
Hopewell Meeting of Quakers, Frederick County, Virginia.

The name Chapman is said to be of Saxon origin, from ceapman, a chapman,
a merchant, seller of small wares.

O'Neal lists the Chapman and Summers families as originally German who
had fled to England due to religious oppression and later emigrated to
America.