Person:John Chaplin (10)

John Chaplin (1758 - 1837) of Rowley, Mass. and Bridgton,Me. Compiled by Milton Ellis & Leola Chaplin Ellis H.S. Cobb Printing Co. Westbrook, Maine 1949 Page 25 - 26

  John Chaplin (John 5, Lieut. John 4, John 3, Joseph 2, Hugh 1) born in Rowley, Mass., 20 August, 1784, was brought up on his father's farm in western Naples (then in Bridgton) and probably remained there when the family moved to the Miramichi Valley in 1801. He was the first of the sons to be married, on 6 November, 1806, to Lydia A. Knowles, who was born 27 June 1786, in Fayette, Maine, and died in Naples, 20 February, 1858. John Chaplin was a farmer and blacksmith. In the Cumberland County Registry of Deeds at Portland, numerous deeds for lots in Bridgton and adjacent towns are recorded jointly in the names of John and his father, for whom he may have acted as agent during the latter's residence in New Brunswick. On 30 December, 1822, he purchased from his father one undivided half of the homestead farm, which remained in the possession of his descendants until the opening of the twentieth century. Though John Chaplin had eleven children and many grand children, all his male Chaplin descendants in direct line are through his oldest son, Richard Smith, and the latter's oldest son, Appleton. John Chaplin died at his home, 25 January, 1849, and is buried in the Chaplin Cemetery, opposite the homestead lot. For several of his children, all born in Naples (Bridgton), divergent birth dates are given in the Bridgton records and in the family Bible of his son, John Knowles.