Bartholomew Chapple
Taken from the Jerseyville Republican, Feb. 2, 1922. Local Woman Has Old Land Grant Made By Andrew Jackson.
In our rainbow-chasing age there are a few who value family and relics and heirlooms. Mrs. Emma Noble Dodson has some very interesting properties of her grandfather. Bartholomew Chapple, his wife and five children came to this country from England about 1832 in a sailing vessel. It was a nine-week trip and for seven weeks they came without the sight of land.
They came to what was then Greene County and Mr. Chapple bought from the government 80 acres of land, one-half mile northeast of Dow. Mrs. Dodson has the land grant which was issued to her grandfather on April 2, 1835, signed and sealed in the name of President A. Jackson, by his secretary. The farm remained the property of the Chapple heirs until it was sold recently by the original owner's granddaughter, Mrs. Ed Reed of Dow, to C. L. James who is now living on the farm.
When Mr. Chapple settled at Dow the nearest bank was at Alton, so in the absence of convenient banking facilities he developed into a local money-lender. He kept gold and silver in shop bags which he buried. Mr. Chapple had brought from England a brass balance and weights in a heavy cardboard case. On the case is printed, "Simmon's Improved Sovereign Balance – To weight and gauge sovereigns and half-sovereigns. Being so exact that no counterfeit can possibly go thru the gauge of sufficient weight to turn the balance."
He also had a "Ready Reckoner", a small book which was used to compute interest on English money. It is a quaint little book with a well-worn leather binding and inside is the date, 1827.
But the most novel of these relics is a parchment bound book, the inside of which is elaborately inscribed, "Cyphering Book of Bartholomew Chappel, November 1st., 1798."
In this book, compiled by Mr. Chapple when he was a boy, are examples of all the different arithmetical exercises. There are about twenty divisions for these different operations and at the beginning of each division is an elaborate pen and ink heading and scroll-work designing and even, in one case, a bird picture.
The problems are carefully and precisely written and ruled lines and solutions follow and the answer is usually written in rhyme.
One of the problems was: "How many times will a coach wheel that is 19 feet, 2 inches in circumference turn from Southmolton to London, allowing it to be 200 miles. The solution is then given and below it are carefully written the words: "I have studied my Brain and have that 54,857 times the wheel turns around." Signed, Bartholomew Chapple. His Book, January 15th, 1799."
And proportion is well disguised as the "Golden Ruyle of Three", extravagantly decorated with curves and twists from a facile pen. The rule follows:
This Golden Ruyle has places a three
The first and the third must so agree.
That of one kind they may remain
If two the truth they will attain.
Then Third by Second multiply,
Divide by first ingeniously,
Then will the quotient show the same
As you in second place did frame.

CHAPPLE. Died -05-1869. Bartholomew Chapple born Devonshire, England, Feb. 4, 1783 of influential parentage, his youth passed on a farm. At age 22 he married Elizabeth Bendle, of gentle blood, who died 1816, leaving 6 children, the youngest, Wm., an infant. Three years later he married Grace Geens, also of gentle parentage, with whom he lived through prosperity and adversity for 50 years - seven children born to this union. About year 1830 his eldest son came to U.S. Two years later Father Chapple sailed from Liverpool, England with his family and after a voyage of 13 weeks, disembarked at New York City, Oct. 1, 1832. Proceeded to Dresden, Ohio, where they stopped for a short time with a friend; but not liking the country, he came west. Leaving his family at Alton, he explored the surrounding country, finally purchasing a farm of Bushrod Hamilton, in Jersey County, 8 miles south of Jerseyville, to which he removed his family in December of the same year. Lived here rest of his life. Of his children, 13 in all, seven survive him: the eldest - John B. Chapple - living in Boone County, Ill. is now 63 years of age, the youngest, Richard, is 35 years of age. Father Chappell - 87 years.