OBITUARY NOTICES. 
381 
DANIEL CURRIER CHAPMAN. 
1826-1895. 
[Read before the Society, October 24, 1896.] 
Iii complying with the request to present a memorial 
address of our late associate, Daniel Currier Chapman, a 
duty I can hardly hope to perform with justice to the man, 
a high appreciation is felt of the privilege of preparing for 
the archives of the Society the record of his successful 
labors. 
Mr. Chapman was born at South Corinth, Vermont, Octo¬ 
ber 27,1826, and died in Washington, January 3,1895. He 
was the son of a farmer and miller, said to have been one of 
the progressive men of his district, and gifted with a me¬ 
chanical skill that enabled him to make his own improved 
implements of labor. The son inherited the skill in me¬ 
chanics that later in his life did him good service and helped 
him to render the valuable assistance uniformly accredited 
to him by his employers. 
As a boy and youth he labored on a farm in summer to 
earn the money for his winter schooling, until his gradua¬ 
tion from Bradford Academy. After teaching school several 
winters he went to Manchester, New Hampshire, and learned 
the trade of machinist. In 1852, at the age of twenty-six, he 
moved to New York, and seems to have established himself 
as a machinist, with a more ample range for his inventive 
skill. At this time, it is said, he produced the first button¬ 
hole machine ever made; he was also engaged in manufact¬ 
uring the separate parts of sewing machines, then in their 
earlier stage of development. 
In 1863 Mr. Chapman purchased a small gallery in the 
upper part of the Bowery, in New York, and laid the foun¬ 
dation for the reputation he subsequently earned as an ex¬ 
pert, or, more properly, a scientific, photographer. His skill 
as a mechanic was, doubtless, of great help to him in these 
