Dennis Chapin Sr. (1809 -1869)

Dennis Chapin Sr. was born on October 6th, 1809 to Seth and Sibyl Chapin. The Chapin family was one of the first groups of pioneers to claim a stake in Philo, Illinois near a place called Yankee Ridge, which was named for the New Englanders who tended to settle there. Dennis married his first wife Susan H. Crosby in 1832. and with her had one daughter, Mary Louise Chapin. Susan sadly passed away when little Mary was just three years old.

Dennis quickly remarried Lucinda ‘Dorcas’ McNeil within a year of his first wife’s passing. Together, Dennis and Dorcas had nine additional children. Two of the children–Lewis and Samuel–died in childhood, while another unnamed child died in infancy.

In 1857, Dennis Chapin signed a homesteading contract in Champaign County; three years later, he took out a warrantee deed on his property, indicating his intention to sell it. On May 8, 1869 at the age of 59 years old, Dennis Chapin Sr. died in Illinois.