John Chapman (109)

Election date: 1768 (Elected to the American Society.)
APS Office(s): John Chapman (18 October 1740–27 January 1800) was a physician and a member of the American Philosophical Society via his 1768 election to the American Society. Born into a Quaker family in Wrightstown Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, he traveled to Philadelphia in 1762 to study medicine with APS member Cadwalader Evans. Chapman then returned to Wrightstown and established his own practice. A supporter of the patriot cause during the American Revolution, he served on the Committee of Safety and the Committee of Correspondence. He also helped to collect funds to relieve victims of the British blockade of Boston, but his religious principles prevented him from supporting outright war and in 1775 he asked to be excused from the latter Committee. Nonetheless, he took the oath of allegiance in 1779, before accepting the offices of justice of the peace and judge of the Court of Common Pleas. For these actions and his subsequent role caring for wounded soldiers and prisoners of war, Chapman was disowned by the Friends Monthly Meeting, though he would later be reinstated. His 1783 bid for election to the State Council was unsuccessful, but three years later he was elected to the Assembly with a number of other politicians hostile to the state’s radical new constitution; he was re-elected annually from 1787 to 1795. In 1796 he was elected to the United States House of Representatives on the Federalist ticket, where he voted for the Alien and Sedition Acts. Chapman also served as president of the Bucks County equivalent of the Philadelphia County Society for Promoting Agriculture. (PI)

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