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Josiah Chapin


For Elizabeth Hunter Vaughan and her cousins.


Josiah Chapin, second son of Deacon Samuel, was born in England in 1634, but must have come to this country very young. If he came with his father, in 1636, he would have been only about two years old. He is recorded in Springfield as having taken the oath of fidelity on March 23, 1656. He was a young man when he settled at Weymouth, Mass. He afterwards removed to Braintree. In Weymouth he made his first marriage and there his first son, Samuel, was born. In Braintree he made two subsequent marriages and had 13 children. His father transferred to him lands in Mendon, Mass., which had been conferred upon Deacon Samuel by the Massachusetts colony for services rendered. Josiah removed to Mendon between 1680 and 1682, and spent the rest of his long life there, being one of the leading citizens of the town. He was Selectman for many years, for 11 years chairman of the Board of Selectmen, Justice of the Peace by commission said to have come from the British Parliament, and in 1689 was the first elected representative to the General Court. The tax lists of Mendon show that for successive years he was the largest taxpayer in the place. He held many other offices and in 1720, when he was 86 years old, he was again chosen representative. He was for half a century Mendon's first citizen, and died September 10, 1726, aged 92 years, having outlived his three wives, and leaving a large family of children, from whom has come one of the largest and strongest branches of the Chapin family.

From the Chapin Genealogy