My Genealogy Hound

DR. M. V. CHAPMAN, veterinary surgeon and farmer, of Gibbon, Buffalo county, is a native of the town of Worcestor, Otsego county, N. Y., and was born June 16, 1834. He comes of York state parentage, his father and mother, Jonas and Polly B. Chapman, both having been born and reared in the “Empire State.” The father was killed by the explosion of a steamboat boiler while returning from New Orleans, in 1840, and the mother died in Pennsylvania in 1870. There were six children born to these, all of whom reached maturity, and five of whom are now living, the full list being — Leonora, now wife of Huron Daniels; Orcelia, deceased; Rosabella, wife of L. Close; Andrew Jackson; Stephen Mayne and Martin Van Buren.

The subject of this notice, the youngest of the above children, was reared to the age of twenty years in Otsego and Cayuga counties, N. Y., coming West at that date, and settling in Steuben county, Ind. There, on the 20th of April, 1855, he married Miss Delia McLouth, daughter of Rev. B. McLouth, of that county, and settled down to the pursuit of agriculture. In December, 1863, he entered the Union army, enlisting in Company F, Twenty-seventh Michigan volunteer infantry. His was one of the historic regiments of the Union army and did excellent service during the two years it was in the field. It took part in seventeen strongly contested engagements, and lost, in killed and wounded, over eight hundred men out of one thousand, four hundred and eighty-five. Those actually killed in battle were two hundred and twenty-five, being over fifteen per cent. Its heaviest losses occurred at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Bethsaida church and at Petersburg, it being in the assault, the mine explosion and the trenches at the last named place. Our subject was not with his regiment, however, during its entire term of service. During the latter part of the war he was on detached duty. After the surrender he was assigned to a place in the department of the Freedman’s Bureau, being assistant superintendent and provost-marshal for Halifax county, Va. He quit the public service in October, 1865, and returned at that date to Steuben county, Ind., where he resumed farming and his other private pursuits. Being a great fancier of horse flesh, a man of close observation and studious habits, our subject began, when only a youth, to give his attention to veterinary matters, reading such books as fell into his hands, and “doctoring” his own and neighbors’ horses. With the increase of years, he gathered increased knowledge and experience, and discovered in himself a growing taste for the profession of a veterinary surgeon, until at last he made up his mind to perfect himself for this as a pursuit and did so, having followed it successfully for some years. He came to Nebraska in 1878 and purchased land north of Gibbon in Buffalo county, locating there and residing in that vicinity since. He has at different times been largely interested in Buffalo county real estate, but has recently closed out most of his interests of this nature. He is also interested in the state bank of Gibbon being a stockholder therein. He has a pleasant home one mile north of the town of Gibbon, lying on the banks of Wood river. Having had the misfortune to lose his wife in 1871, Dr. Chapman married again in August, 1872, the lady whom he selected as a companion the second time being Miss Mary Stiles, of Sauk Center, Minn. He has had born to him a number of children; three surviving of his first marriage, and six of the second. In private intercourse, Dr. Chapman is pleasant and affable, being of a quiet, unobtrusive disposition and very thoughtful for the feelings and welfare of others. He is a man of good intelligence and possesses a large fund of general information. He has never aspired to public office, being content to pursue the even tenor of his way as a humble citizen of the community where he has lived. In politics he is independent, though he formerly affiliated with the republican party and still votes that ticket in national elections, but for local men and measures he follows his judgment, believing in the survival of the fittest, regardless of party affiliations or personal predilection.