Draft:Asa Chapman

Asa Chapman (September 2, 1770 – September 25, 1825) was a justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court from 1818 to 1825.

Born in Saybrook, Connecticut, Chapman graduated from Yale University in 1792, in the same class as Eli Whitney, Roger Minott Sherman, William Marchant, and William Botsford.

"The Toleration party, a combination of all the elements hostile to the Federalists and the Congregational Establishment, whose watchword was a new Constitution, carried the elections in the fall of 1817. The Constitution, which was adopted in the following year, reduced the number of the judges from nine to five. Owing to the excellence of the old court, and the fact that most of the lawyers, always a conservative class, were Federalists, there was much anxiety to see what kind of a court could be formed by the Tolerationists from their scant material. It was hoped that some of the old judges would be retained; but all were retired by the Tolerationist Legislatures, except Judges Hosmer and Brainard."

Chapman was one of three new judges named by the Tolerationists.

"Third son of Phineas and Mary (Hillier) Chapman, and grandson of Deacon Caleb and Thankful (Lord) Chapman, of Saybrook. He was fitted for College by his pastor, the Rev. Frederick W. Hotchkiss (Yale 1778).

He stood well in College, and after graduation taught for a year in an Academy in North Salem, Westchester County, New York, and for a second year in the Academy in Norwalk, Connecticut. He also continued to teach after he was settled in his profession.

He studied law with the Hon. Tapping Reeve in Litchfield, Connecticut, was admitted to the bar in 1795, and settled in practice in Newtown, in Fairfield County. He represented that town in the General Assembly in six sessions between 1801 and 1815, and in 1817 he was elected to the Governor's Council. He was an Episcopalian in faith, and thus fell naturally into the ranks of the party dominant in the State at that date.

In 1808 he was elected a Judge of the Superior Court, and held that office until his death.

For many years he had instructed students in law; and in the autumn of 1824 he removed from Newtown to New Haven, where he opened a Law School, but was very quickly obliged to relinquish it, from declining health.

His disease was consumption, and after two journeys in search of health, he died in New Haven on September 25, 1825, at the age of 55.

He was married, at Newtown, on September 2, 1798, to Mary (“Polly”), eldest daughter of Dr. Bennett and Sarah (Beers) Perry, by whom he had three sons and one daughter. The eldest son was a distinguished lawyer in Hartford and a Member of Congress.

Mrs. Chapman died in Brooklyn, New York, at the residence of one of her sons, on March 24, 1850, in her 70th year.

Many of his manuscript letters addressed to Judge David Daggett are preserved in the Yale Library."