Page:Centennial History of Oregon volume 2.djvu/90

84 always given to the men and measures of the democratic party, the policy of which he deems best adapted to subserve the interests of the majority. The twenty-seven years of Mr. Palmer's residence in Baker county covers the great formative period in its development. He has lived to see the great expanses of prairie and the vast forests of the state transformed into beautiful orchards and grain fields, while little hamlets and villages have grown into tliriving towns and enterprising cities.

WILLARD HART CHAPIN, who since October, 1889, has made his home in Portland and through the course of orderly progression has reached a prominent place in real-estate circles, having since March. 1907. lieen engaged in this field of business with excellent success, was born in Livonia, Livingston county, New York. Septemlier 1, 1862. He is descended from old American families. His great-grandfather, Elijah Chapin, responded to the call to arms when, on the 18th of April. 1775, Paul Revere rode tlirougli the New England village awakening the Jlinute Men with the news that the British were on the march. With his comrades he went forth in battle array and served until American independence was acliieved. Levi Green, another grandfather of Mr. Chapin. served in the Saratoga campaign during the Revolutionary war and was aftervard a government pensioner. His great-grandfather, Joseph Hart, of Hopewell. New Jersey, was a private in Captain William Tucker's Company of the First Regiment of Hunterdon county. New Jersey, and served throughout the war for independence. Orange Chapin, the grandfather of Mr. Chapin, was a soldier in the War of 1813 and his father, Willard Slocum Cliapin, served throughout the Civil war, being mustered in at Portage. New York, in August, 1862. as a member of the One Hundred and Thirty-sixth New York Volunteer Infantry. He went to the front as first sergeant, was promoted to the rank of captain and was breveted major after the close of the war. His regiment was engaged at Chancellorsville and at Gettysburg and later on was transferred to the Army of the Cumberland. After participating in the campaign around Lookout Mountain he went with Sherman to the sea and faced the enemy in a number of noted engagements. During his active business life he followed merchandising. His wife bore the maiden name of Catherine Hart.

In the graded schools of his native town Willard H, Chapin pursued his education and was graduated in 1881. From the age of tliirteen years he had sold papers and conducted a newsstand in his father's place of liusiness but could not see anything beyond that kind of a life in the village. Ho saw that his lioine locality offered absolutely no opportunities Iieyond gaining a bare living, niiiny of his school friends had left and he realized that it was his only hope of making his way along the path to success. Accordingly he first went to Rochester, where for alioiit si months he was employed as a clerkin a dry-goods store. In March, 1883, he removed from Rochester to Olean, New York, where for four years he filled the office of assistant postmaster. But with the election of President Cleveland he was requested to resign, after which he clerked in a retail shoe store for a j'ear. In March, 1887, he went to Chicago, where a friend had secured for him a position in the office of C. M. Henderson &. Compan.y, at that time (he lurgest wholesale shoe house in the west. Two yi'ars of very strenuous labor there undermined his health so that he went to Emery county, Utah, and, thinking that outdoor life would prove beneficial, spent one summer on a cattle ranch, where he did his share in the work — cooking, riding the range, punching cattle, branding, etc. It was a summer of hardships, out all day on the range in sun or in rain, then rolling up at night in a blanket with a saddle for a pillow. Before the season was over there came days of snow and sleet, and his experience on a Utah range was one of hardships.

In October. 1889. Mr. Chapin came to Portland, where he has made his home continuously since. For five and a half years he was connected with the firm of Blake, McFall & Company and later spent three years in the commission house of Richet, Roberts & Bell. He was afterward secretary for the W. B. Glofke Company, a wholesale commission firm, for about nine years and then, withdrawing from that connection in March, 1907. embarked in the real-estate business, in which he is still engaged and in which he is finding ample scope for his energy and adaptability—his dominant qualities. Already he has secured a good clientage in this connection and has negotiated many important realty transfers. He is now president of the Chapin-Hulow Mortgage & Trust Company, an organization with a capital of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, doing a general real-estate business, home building, mortgages and insurance. This company is one of the largest and best known concerns in Portland.

On the 9th of November, 1893, Mr. Chapin was married to Miss Jane Helen Lewis, a daughter of D. W. Lewis, who spent a part of his early life in Kansas during the troublous times in the history of that state, during which he sheltered John Brown. He espoused the Union cause in the Civil war and. being captured, was incarcerated in a Confederate prison until exchanged. He died in August, 1907.

Wliile residing in Olean, New York, Mr. Chapin was connected with the volunteer fire department and during the last year of liis residence there was first assistant chief. He holds exemption papers from the state of New York, liaving served five years there as volunteer fireman. In 1884 he assisted in organizing the Blaine & Logan IMarching Cluli, which after the election of that year was merged into a military company with Mr. Chapin as second lieutenant. The company secured uniforms and arms at their own expense. In 1887 they were mustered into the state troops as the Twenty-seventh Separate