Amaziah Chappell, My Maternal 4th Great Grandfather
DAR Ancestor # A020996
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
Week 12– Prompt: Address with a Story
When we think of an address, we usually picture a house or a street. But for my ancestor Amaziah Chappell, the most important addresses in his life were not homes at all. They were the places where he served during the American Revolution—towns and army camps recorded on muster rolls as he followed the long road of the Continental Army.
Lebanon, Connecticut
Amaziah Chappell was from Lebanon, Connecticut, a town that played an important role during the Revolutionary War. Governor Jonathan Trumbull operated from Lebanon, and the town became one of the primary supply centers for the Continental Army in New England.
On 7 May 1777, Amaziah was appointed to military service in the regiment commanded by Colonel Samuel Blachley Webb of the Connecticut Line. He first served under Captain Alden, but after Alden’s death his company came under the command of Captain Buckley, where Amaziah continued to serve for the remainder of his enlistment.
Just weeks after entering service, Amaziah married Jerusha Chappell, his 3rd cousin, in Lebanon on 22 June 1777, according to the Connecticut Barbour Collection of vital records. Their marriage began as Amaziah prepared for several years of military duty.
Guarding the British at Newport
Muster rolls and pay records place Amaziah’s company in several towns along the coast of Rhode Island during 1778 and 1779.
The records list him at:
• Warren, Rhode Island (November 1778 – January 1779)
• Tiverton, Rhode Island (February–April 1779)
• Newport, Rhode Island (May 1779)
• Tiverton again (July–August 1779)
These towns sit only a few miles apart around Narragansett Bay, and their proximity tells an important part of the story. During this time the British Army occupied the strategic port of Newport, which they had held since 1776.
Continental forces were stationed in nearby towns for months, watching the British garrison and preventing them from expanding their control across Rhode Island. Amaziah and the other soldiers of Webb’s regiment were part of this long standoff, guarding the approaches to Newport and maintaining pressure on the British position.
During this period Amaziah appears on the rolls as Corporal Amaziah Chappell, indicating that he had been promoted from private and was responsible for helping supervise the men in his squad.
Company Muster Roll listing Corporal Amaziah Chappell serving Battalion of Connecticut Forces commanded by Colonel Samuel B. Webb during the Revolutionary War.
Near Camp Morristown
Later records place Amaziah and his regiment “near Camp Morristown” in New Jersey from January through May 1780.
Morristown served as the winter headquarters for General George Washington’s Continental Army, and the winter of 1779–1780 proved to be one of the harshest of the entire Revolutionary War. Snow covered the ground for weeks, supplies ran dangerously low, and soldiers struggled to obtain adequate food and clothing.
Washington himself described the situation starkly, writing that the army was facing “a famine in camp.”
Temperatures across the region were so extreme that even New York Harbor froze solid that winter, illustrating just how severe the conditions were for the soldiers encamped at Morristown.
The muster rolls showing Amaziah Chappell “near Camp Morristown” place him among the thousands of soldiers who endured that brutal winter while serving under Washington.
One entry also notes that Amaziah was “sick at Lebanon,” suggesting that illness may have forced him to return home temporarily before completing his term of service.
Company Muster Roll showing Corp. Amaziah Chappell camped near Morristown during the winter encampment of 1779–1780.
Discharge from Service
After three years in the Continental Army, Corporal Amaziah Chappell was discharged on 7 May 1780, completing the enlistment that had begun in the spring of 1777.
His wartime addresses—Lebanon, Warren, Tiverton, Newport, and Morristown—trace the path of a Connecticut soldier serving through some of the most challenging years of the American Revolution.
A Veteran’s Struggle for Support
Like many Revolutionary War veterans, Amaziah later sought financial support for his service.
He received a disability pension from the State of Connecticut, reflecting the lingering effects of his military service. Later, after moving west to Granville in Washington County, New York, he applied for a federal pension under the Act of March 18, 1818, one of the early laws passed by Congress to assist aging veterans of the Revolution.
The surviving pension papers illustrate the difficulties many former soldiers faced in proving their service decades after the war had ended.
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Pension record for Revolutionary War soldier Amaziah Chappell.
Closing Reflection
The places where Amaziah Chappell lived and served may appear only briefly in muster rolls and pension records, but together they form a map of one soldier’s journey through the American Revolution.
Each of those addresses—Lebanon, Warren, Tiverton, Newport, Morristown, and later Granville—marks a point along the path of a young man who left home in 1777 and spent three years helping secure the independence of a new nation.
My Line of Descent from Amaziah Chappell
Amaziah Chappell (1753–1829)
→ Hiram Coxxal Chappell (1789– )
→ Roena Louisa Chappell (1829–1881)
→ George T. Neal (1864–1910)
→ Elizabeth Moore Neal (1904–1984)
→ Margaret Ella “Peggy” Nolen (1926–2017)
→ Elizabeth Susan “Libby” Wallis
Sources
Barbour Collection of Connecticut Vital Records, Lebanon, Connecticut, marriage of Amaziah Chappell and Jerusha Chappell, 22 June 1777.
Connecticut Revolutionary War Military Lists, 1775–1783, entries for Amaziah Chappell.
Muster rolls and payroll records of Colonel Samuel Blachley Webb’s Regiment, Connecticut Line, Revolutionary War.
United States Revolutionary War Pension Records, Amaziah Chappell, pension application under the Act of 18 March 1818.
Historical accounts of the Morristown Winter Encampment, 1779–1780, Continental Army.
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