- AARON LUCIUS CHAPIN was born in Hartford, Conn., Feb. 4,
1817. His ancestors on the
- side of both father and mother, were citizens of Connecticut,
and were held in esteem for excellent qualities of intellect
and character. His father, Laertes CHAPIN, passed an honorable
and long life as a mechanic, in Hartford. He himself was one
of several children, all of whom have approved themselves as
valuable members of society, and some of them occupying positions
of usefulness in public life. His brother, Nathan CHAPIN, was
for several years a Pastor in La Crosse, and now resides in Rochester,
Minn. Mr. CHAPIN received his academical education in the Hartford
Grammar School, and at Yale College, graduating at the latter
institution in 1837. Among the members of his class are several
gentlemen of national reputation - Rev. A. L. Stone, D.D., of
San Francisco, Hon. Jeremiah Evarts, Chief Justice Morrison R.
Waite and Prof. Benjamin Stillman, are of this number. During
the year subsequent to his leaving college, he was engaged in
teaching in a family school in Baltimore, Md., and, from 1838
to 1843, was a professor in the New York Institution for the
deaf and dumb. He studied theology while there engaged, and received
his diploma from the Union Theological Seminary of New York,
in 1842. The Western States were at this time opening a new and
important field for enterprise, not only in the pursuits of ordinary
industry, but to the regulative forces of the Christian ministry
and academical instruction. Sharing in the common impulse, Mr.
CHAPIN, under the appointment of the Home Missionary Society,
removed, in 1844, to Milwaukee, where he became Pastor of the
First Presbyterian Church. Here he remained six years. His pastorate
in Milwaukee is spoken of as having been one of great thoroughness
and efficiency, both in the pulpit and in other relations of
clerical life. His acquaintance is affectionately cherished by
not a few who were cognizant of that early ministry. In February
of 1850, he was called from Milwaukee to the Chair of Beloit
College, as its first President, and was inaugurated into the
duties of that office July 24, of the same year. He has occupied
this position since that time. The college at Beloit largely
owes to Dr. CHAPIN, in conjunction with Rev. Jackson J. Bushnell
and Rev. Joseph Emerson, who were its first professors, the excellent
influence it has exerted in our State. These gentlemen brought
from the colleges of New England their conception of scholarly
culture, and made it the model for their younger school. Its
administration in general conformity to this model has been steady
and firm, with a readiness to accommodate educational methods
to new phases of social need under the suggestions of enlarged
experience; the qualities of Dr. CHAPIN's mind have been manifested
in an official life, wherein the precedents of the past have
been limited in their control only by the actual requirements
of the present. Mr. CHAPIN was married to Miss Martha COTTON
[COLTON], of Lenox, Mass., Aug. 23, 1843. He is the father of
eight children, one of them, his daughter, Elizabeth C. CHAPIN,
now the wife of Rev. Henry D. PORTER, M.D., is at present a missionary
of the American Board of Tien-Tsin, in China. The other surviving
children, save one, are still young, and are contributing to
the father's later years the graces of a happy and honorable
home. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon Mr.
CHAPIN by Williams College, in 1853. In 1865, during a brief
period of physical exhaustion, he passed several months in Europe;
since that time, in the midst of various and somewhat arduous
responsibilities, he has enjoyed uniform physical health, and
now advancing years rest upon him rather as an adornment than
as a burden. A mind well poised and patient rather than imaginative
and brilliant, which is at home in the practical adjustments
of affairs, by reason of a clear and ready brain, kindly sympathies
controlled by sound judgment, a social habit rather reserved
than demonstrative, are qualifications which have brought him
to important offices. He has been for many years among the corporate
members of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,
a Life Director of the American Home Missionary Society, on of
the Vice Presidents of the American Missionary Association, President
of the Board of Trustees of the State Institution for Deaf Mutes,
at Delavan. He was one of the Board of Examiners at the U.S.
Naval School at Annapolis, in 1872, and occupied the same position
at West Point, in 1873. He is now President of the Wisconsin
Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the midst of a busy life, Dr.
CHAPIN has found little time for the protracted labor of literary
authorship. He has given to the press a few occasional sermons,
addresses and reviews. In 1873, an edition of Dr. Wayland's "Political
Economy" was issued under his supervision, in which the
original work appeared recast and largely written by him. This
treatise has been adopted as a text-book in several schools and
colleges, and is spoken of with favor. In connection with the
Presidency of the College, he occupies the chair of History and
Civil Polity. He seems now, to the casual observer, but little
past the medium of life, and enjoys the promise of many years
of happy and useful service.
-
- Taken from "The History of Rock County, Wis."
(c)1879; pp. 741-742.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
- Correction [in bracket] courtesy of Pat Schley; Martha
COLTON's brother, Wells COLTON, was
- a law partner with David DAVIS. Wells died in an explosion
in 1849. David DAVIS' mansion is a historical site in Bloomington,
IL; click for the David
Davis Mansion web site (where Pat is a volunteer).
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