Editing Chapman, Pennsylvania (section)

==History==
Chapman was named for William Chapman, who owned [[slate]] quarries in the borough.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ | title=The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States | publisher=Govt. Print. Off. | author=Gannett, Henry | year=1905 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ/page/n74 75]}}</ref> Chapman was from [[Cornwall]], England. He was born in 1816 in Mt. Tonenshau in [[Brussels]], where his mother had gone to nurse his father after being severely injured in the [[Battle of Waterloo]]. At the age of seven, Chapman began working in the Delabole slate quarries in Cornwall, where his father worked. At the age of 26, Chapman emigrated to the United States, where he leased property in [[Northampton County, Pennsylvania|Northampton County]] and later purchased the property and started the Chapman Slate Company.

While the [[slate industry|slate quarries]] were originally opened in 1850, the company itself was officially incorporated by a special act of the [[Pennsylvania General Assembly|Pennsylvania state legislature]] in 1864 with a capital stock of $300,000.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Portrait and Biographical Record of Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon Counties, Pennsylvania|publisher=Chapman Publishing Company|year=1894|location=Chicago, Ill|pages=821–823}}</ref> The quarry grew to a considerable size measuring from 700 to 800 feet along a longitudinal joint and was about 200 feet wide and 300 feet deep. William Chapman died in [[Bethlehem, Pennsylvania]] in 1903 at the age of 86.