Scope and Content Note:

The Chapin Family collection consists primarily of legal documents, land deeds, bills and receipts, inventories, and some correspondence to and from the Chapin family. The collection, which occupies 3.5 linear feet of shelf space, contains documents beginning in 1676 and continues through 1915 with the greatest concentration in the 18th and early 19th century. While the collection is concerned primarily with the Chapin family, it does contain several non-Chapin names that were included within the Chapin collection.

The collection is organized into the following groups:
(1) Chapin family members, which are organized alphabetically by first name;
(2)  miscellaneous Chapin family documents, filed in chronological order;
(3)  Chapin-Cooley material (which are records concerned with the South Hadley Canal);
(4) Ariel Cooley material (seven folders);
(5) the papers of non-Chapin individuals, which are alphabetized by last name; and
(6) oversized materials which contain documents too large for the standard collection.

Additional materials of Chester Williams Chapin, Enoch Chapin and Josiah Chapin may be found in the Springfield Bound Volumes Collection.