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"Born in Boston, January 23, 1807; died May 25, 1848;
served during 1840-1842.
At the very outset, Mayor Chapman
made a reduction of the city debt his principal object as chief magistrate.
He achieved it by securing various retrenchments, but the tax rate was not
reduced. The city was not exactly poor, although the debt in eighteen years
had risen from $100,000 to more than $1,500,000, for it owned extensive
property, much of which had been improved. The current expenses of the city
at the time, except those for ordinary purposes and the payment of the city
debt, amounted to about $425,000 annually, of which nearly a quarter was
charged to the public schools.
Mayor Chapman did not favor
the project of a new city hall for which land had been bought, but
recommended instead that the old County Court House should be remodeled and
serve as a city hall. A new building for the Probate and Registry offices
had been completed, and the city government moved into its former quarters
in 1841.
The epochal event during Mayor
Chapman's administration was the establishment of steam navigation
between Boston and Liverpool in 1840. The occurrence was properly celebrated
and signalized as a commercial improvement assuring great results. At the
same time, the Western Railroad was completed and opened connection to the
Hudson river in 1841.
Mayor Chapman was the first
head of the Boston city administration who seemed to have been much
concerned with the question of licenses for the sale of spirituous liquors.
There was a license law in force at the time to which the Mayor was opposed.
Indeed, he regarded the licensing system 'as wrong in principle and
injurious in effect.' He wished the public peace preserved as well as public
proprieties, but as to the use of spirituous liquors, he would leave that to
the individual, 'and above all to Washingtonians' (a temperance society of
that day)."
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