CHAPMAN, DOUGLAS (1835-1915)

CHAPMAN, DOUGLAS, Methodist minister, Chatham circuit, 1882-85, and Newcastle circuit, 1885-86; b. Fort Lawrence, N.S., 16 Jan 1835, s/o Benjamin Chapman and Sarah Bliss; m. 1st, 1861, Elizabeth Freeman Wells, of Wallace, N.S., and 2nd, 1891, Elizabeth Amy (Trueman) Cutten, of Moncton; d. Amherst, N.S., 3 Dec 1915.

Douglas Chapman entered the Methodist ministry on trial in 1857, and after the usual four-year probation, including a year spent at the Methodist mission in Bermuda, he was received into 'full connexion' and ordained. He served in New Brunswick, mostly in urban churches, for upwards of forty years. He was based in St Andrews before accepting assignment to Chatham in 1882. During his term he organized a program of public addresses known as the Chatham Lecture Course, for which speakers were drawn from different centers in the province. In 1885 he participated in the laying of the cornerstone for the new St Luke's Methodist Church, which was finished during the pastorate of his successor, the Rev. Frederick W. Harrison. When he left he went to Newcastle for a one-year term and then to Point de Bute, N.B. He retired in Amherst in 1902.

It was stated that Chapman "wore the white flower of a blameless life," and no Methodist clergyman in the Maritimes was more highly respected. In 1893 he was granted an honorary DD by Mount Allison University.