Byron Eaton Chapman is the proprietor of the well known stationery store at No. 518 East Main street, Little Falls. The son of Joseph K. and Lucinda (Eaton) Chapman, he was born in this city in the house in which he now makes his home, on the 21st of August, 1854. His father, a stonecutter and mason by occupation, was a native of Massachusetts and died in Little Falls in October, 1859, at the age of forty-four. The mother, who was born here and spent the sixty-nine years of her life in this city, was the granddaughter of John Eaton, who had the distinction of being one of George Washington's bodyguard during the Revolutionary war.
Byron Eaton Chapman was educated in the public schools of Little Falls and the Little Falls Academy. At the age of eighteen he accepted a position as clerk in the local post office, where he spent eight and a half years. He left that position to buy out the stationery business of Albert E. Nan, who at that time had a store at the location now occupied by the Endicott-Johnson shoe store. Two and a half years later Mr. Chapman moved his store to the site of the present Little Falls National Bank, where he conducted his business for about sixteen years. In 1900 he came to his present address, so that this has been his location for nearly a quarter of a century.
On June 8, 1882, Mr. Chapman was united in marriage to Miss Hattie A. DeWitt of Chittenango, Madison county, New York, the daughter of a well known grocery merchant of that place. Mrs. Chapman was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church of Chittenango, which was her home from the day of her birth, March 8, 1860, until her marriage. Her death occurred in Little Falls, on February 1, 1894, at the untimely age of thirty-four. Besides her husband, Mrs. Chapman is survived by two children, a daughter and a son: Vera Forest Chapman, born on August 21, 1884, at Little Falls, was educated in the local high school, and on February 10, 1910, she was married to George I. Oakley of Jamaica, New York, a civil engineer now connected with R. H. Wire & Company of New York city. They have one child, Allen C. Oakley. Earl DeWitt Chapman was born in Little Falls, on October 23, 1886, and was educated in the Little Falls high school and Syracuse University, attending the latter institution for two and a half years. He is now engaged in the street paving business and is associated with the Warren Brothers Company of Boston. On the 30th of December, 1922, he was united in marriage to Miss Ann Marie Cordova of Chicago. Mr. Chapman attends St. Paul's Universalist church of Little Falls. He is a republican in his political sympathies and regularly votes with that party.