Peter Chapman held a very prominent role in the history of Huntsville, Alabama. Born on a Virginia plantation, Peter and Eliza Chapman were moved to Huntsville and lived on the plantation of Governor Reuben Chapman. After the Civil War, the Chapmans became prosperous farmers. Mr. Chapman was a deacon at his church. They had ten children.

Peter Chapman, an African American man, stands as a prominent figure in Huntsville's history. Born in Caroline County, Virginia, in 1794 to Iva and Clory Chapman, Mr. Chapman married Eliza, with whom he had ten children, including Brent, Peter, Jennie, Dallas, Thomas, James, Steptoe, and Bird Lee. Initially enslaved to Colonel Edmund Pendleton on his Virginia plantation, Peter likely met Eliza there. Pendleton was an influential delegate to the Continental Congress in 1774.

Mr. Chapman and his family later moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where they lived on the plantation of Governor Reuben Chapman. Their Christian faith was central to their lives: Mr. Chapman served as a deacon at St. Bartley’s Primitive Baptist Church in Huntsville, Alabama's oldest African American church, while Mrs. Chapman contributed actively to the church’s women’s organizations under Reverend Bartley Harris's leadership.

During the Civil War, Mr. Chapman was too old for regular military duty at 67. While no official regiment records exist for Mr. Chapman according to Freedman's Bank. His son, Steptoe, however, was enlisted by his enslaver, Governor Chapman, but tragically fell ill and died during his service. It is believed that Governor Chapman may have sent Mr. Chapman to tend to Steptoe during his illness.

After the war and emancipation, Peter and Eliza Chapman built a life in Huntsville. They were farmers. Their home, situated a mile north of the courthouse, held a real estate value of $900, equivalent to over $34,000 today. Their son, Bird Lee, born in 1831, became Huntsville Hotel’s first dining room waiter and later served as a Baptist minister.

Mrs. Chapman passed away at age 87 on September 11, 1881, with her obituary featured in The Gazette. Mr. Chapman died at 88, and he rests in Huntsville’s historic Glenwood Cemetery, where the family maintains a notable burial plot. Friends commemorated Mr. Chapman with a poignant poem in his memory:

"There is no flock, however watched or tended,

But has a dead lamb there,

There is no fireside howsoe'er defended

But has a vacant chair.

The air is full of farewells to the dying,

And mourning for the dead."

U.S., Freedman’s Bank Records, 1865-1874, Ancestry.com.

FindaGrave, Peter Chapman, Mem ID 128255503.

1870 U.S. Census, Peter Chapman, Ancestry.com.

1880 U.S. Census, Peter Chapman, Ancestry.com.