2.15. Arabella & Harriet Chapman.

Arabella Chapman & Harriet Chapman. Tintype. Album 2. Page 15.

This portrait of Arabella and her mother Harriet is captioned by Alfarata “Ma and Grandma.” Harriet Chapman was born in 1833 in Paterson, New Jersey. Whether she was born enslaved or free we cannot say; slavery was not wholly abolished in that state until the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1866. She married John R. Chapman some time before 1860, and the two remained married until his death.

Harriet first appears in the records of the 1860 U.S. census living in Jersey City, New Jersey with her husband John and two children, William aged 4 and Arabella aged 1. She is never reported as having worked outside of the home. When she died in 1917, Mrs. Chapman was more than 84 years old. She was buried in Albany Rural Cemetery in the plot of her son John T. Chapman.