Frank A. Chipman

FRANK A. CHIPMAN. Of the pioneers of Rooks County who can claim forty years of continuous residence doubtless not one is better known throughout the length and breadth of the county than Frank A. Chipman. He has served continuously in some town office at Stockton over thirty years, has held county offices, has been a business man as well as a public official, and he not only knows the life and affairs of the county but has catered intimately into them and always for the purpose of rendering some worthy service.

Mr. Chipman came out to the Prairie country of Northwestern Kansas from Illinois. He was born at Momence, that state, February 17, 1853. His grandfather, Isaac Chipman, was born in Canada in 1782. He spent his life as a farmer and his last years were lived at Momence, Illinois, where he died in 1857. Albert Chipman, father of Frank A., was born in Canada in 1818. He grew up there, and as a young man went to Momence, Illinois, where he married and where for several years he followed the trade of carpenter and millwright. From 1857 he was a farmer, having bought land from the Illinois Central Railway six miles north of Momence. In August, 1862, he enrolled as a soldier of the Union with the Seventy-Sixth Illinois Infantry, and saw nearly three years of active service. Among the great battles in which he participated was that of Gettysburg. He was a stanch republican. His death occurred at Momence December 25, 1876. Albert Chipman married Sophronia Joyner. She was born at Bennington, Vermont, in 1831, and after the death of her husband came out to Kansas and died at Stockton March 7, 1904. Her children were: Azel G., who died at Momence aged twenty-one; Frank A.; Ira Judson, who died in infancy; Wallace, who came to Rooks County in 1882, was a farmer and also associated with his brother in the abstract business at Stockton, where he died in 1896; Isaac, who taught school in Illinois, and died at Stockton in the spring of 1880; Edwin E., a druggist who died at Hill City, Kansas, in 1900.

Frank A. Chipman spent the first twenty-two years of his life on his father's farm. His education was secured from the rural schools of Kankakee County Illinois. For four years he worked at the carpenter's trade in that city and in March, 1879, arrived in Kansas and joined the little community of Stockton. The first two years he was employed in a store and another two years in the bank of J. J. Smyth & Company. The business by which he is most widely known is as an abstractor. He catered that work in February, 1884, and continuously for thirty-five years has made out abstracts of title, and there is hardly a parcel of land in all of Rooks County with which his business and experience has not at some time come in touch. He has the largest and most complete business, as its long standing might well justify.

In 1884 Mr. Chipman was elected clerk of the District Court, and by re-election in 1886 served four years. In 1906 he was elected register of deeds, and also had a second term in that office. He was appointed city clerk in 1886, and holds that office today. He has also been purchasing agent for the city, was its mayor three terms and for many years was on the council. As a stanch and steadfast republican Mr. Chipman has the enviable record of never having missed voting in any election for town, county or state offices since he was twenty-one years of age. He has also served on the local republican committee, and has been a man of power in republican councils over the state. He is a member of Newahcuba Lodge No. 189, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. He has a farm of 160 acres seven miles east of Stockton and his home in town is a modern residence on Ash and Second streets.

In 1885, at Stockton, Mr. Chipman married Miss Cynthia A. Reed, daughter of Willis and Betsey (Hawkins) Reed. Her mother is still living in Stockton. Willis Reed, deceased, came to Rooks County and settled on a farm near Stockton as early as 1872, his name being high on the list of early pioneers. Mr. and Mrs. Chipman have a family of four children, their only son having made an enviable record as a soldier in France. Bernice, the oldest, born October 11, 1886, is the wife of Hugh M. Gray, a musical goods salesman at St. Joseph, Missouri. Edna Franc, born November 23, 1888, is a graduate of the Stockton High School, spent two years in the State Normal at Emporia, and is now a stenographer and bookkeeper for a large manufacturing plant at Detroit, Michigan. Helen Lucile, born September 2, 1890, is also a graduate of the Stockton High School and of the State Normal School at Emporia, is a finished and talented musician both instrumental and vocal, was a teacher of music at Independence, Kansas, from 1911 to 1916, and is now living in Detroit, where she is completing her education in the Conservatory of Music there. The son, Floyd, born November 5, 1895, after leaving the Stockton High School, spent two years in the Unversity of Kansas, and during the great war served as a corporal and at the time of the signing of the armistice was on the Western front in France.

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