Deacon Samuel Chapin right hand man of William Pynchon

Tradition says that he lived in Dartmouth, England, for a time, or at least sailed from that port, about 1635, while there is reason for the belief that he came over in 1631 or 1632 in the "Lyon," if he was not of the original Pyncheon company.

In genealogy sometimes you want to go further than the dates, locations and parentage and learn more about the man/woman. One way to do this is to understand the friends, organizations, and interest of your ancestors.

Chapin was a contemporary with Pyncheon in the settlement of Roxbury, Massachusetts. He followed him to Springfield and was known as "Pyncheon's right-hand man" and one of the "founders of Springfield".

Pyncheon led the 1635 settlement of Springfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts, which was named after Pyncheon's home village, now a suburb of Chelmsford in Essex, England. Pynchon built a trading post at Enfield Falls, which would become Springfield, Massachusetts from which he exported between 4,000 to 6,000 beaver pelts a year between 1636 and 1652

Pynchon was a theologian; he expressed his views in The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption (1650).

Chapin and Pynchon have a falling out when Pynchon turns against Chapin's Calvinist beliefs.

Officials of the colony ordered this book burned and demanded that he retract its argument, which was contrary to the colony's official Calvinism. Instead of retracting, Pynchon returned to England in 1652 where he remained for the rest of his life. The profits from Pychon beaver pelt bussiness enabled him to retire to England as a wealthy man.

William Pynchon is an ancestor of the novelist Thomas Pynchon and the actress Fay Wray.

Chapin was made a freeman, June 2. 1641, and elected to town office in 1642.

Oath of a Freeman was a loyalty oath drawn up by the Pilgrims during the early 17th century. A freeman was an established member of a colony who was not under legal restraint. The Oath was a vow to defend the Commonwealth and not to conspire to overthrow the government.

It survives only in a handwritten copy from 1634 and in a later printed version from 1647. Stephen Daye made a broadside printing of the document in 1639, but it is now lost.

The Chapins of this country are all descended from him, according to the best authorities. He was a distinguished man in church and state. He was deacon of the Springfield church, elected in 1649, and employed to conduct services part of the time in 1656-57 when there was no minister in town. He was appointed commissioner to determine small causes, October 10, 1652, and his commission was indefinitely extended in 1654. His wife, Cicely Penny, died February 8, 1682-83; he died November 11, 1675. Of their children five were born in Europe: Catherine, Sarah, David, Henry and Josiah. Japhet was born August 15, 1642, and Hannah, December 2, 1644. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was a descendant of Catherine Chapin and President William H. Taft is of the Josiah Chapin line.