Introduction to the Chapin Family Collection

Lucinda Chapin was the recipient of the majority of the correspondence. She appears in the 1860 Champaign County census as the known mother of Oscar, Hannah, Dennis, Harris, and Margaret (who is generally referred to as Maggie). Her step daughter, Mary Burt, frequently wrote to her, holding the largest share of the collection at thirteen letters. Lucinda was deeply loved by her children based on the desires of her children to see her again after they’ve moved away. However, these letters cover a wide variety of topics and span far across the United States with Lucinda Chapin (living in Champaign-Urbana and later Danville), as the familial focal point.

Sickness is a repeated topic discussed in many of the letters over the three decades covered by the surviving Chapin Correspondence, whooping cough and ague are recurring topics across numerous letters, be the victims children or adults. Letters were how early European settlers of Champaign County communicated with others in the mid to late 19th century. The Midwest was still a developing region and telegram lines were not installed everywhere. In a period when letters arrived over a period of months, letters were by necessity filled with more information. Transcribing each letter revealed more and more about how the Chapin family lived their lives, and glimpses of their personalities and senses of humor broke through.

Arrival of newborns, education, tragic accidents, military service, natural disasters, and even the heartbreaking distance caused by migration fill the pages of this eighty-two document exhibit. It is not exclusively composed of letters, one exception is a photograph of a young man taken in Coshocton, Ohio, and another is a poem about the American Revolution, but they evoke an absorbing image of who the Chapins were, where they came from, and the difficult years they lived through.