Family Secrets Chapter 5 Our Grandmother, the Midwife

John Pinckney Chapman 1844-1927 This is the oldest photo I have of our Chapman grandparents. He and his wife, Nancy Emaline Hickey,were the parents of 9 children, including Peter, Euda's dad.
His mother was Polly, a midwife.

She is buried here beside his father, Solomon, in Oak Hill Cemetery, Montgomery County, Arkansas. You see the cows first, but look for the fence that surrounds the cemetery. This is an old photo of the cemetery which is now is not accessible because it is on private property and is overgrown with bushes, weeds, insects and behind several gates.

Mary Elizabeth "Polly" Whitt Chapman was born in 1808. She traveled throughout Montgomery County in Arkansas on horseback and stayed with mothers during the last of their pregnancies and delivered their babies.

The earliest record we have of our ancestors is Thomas Chapman, born 1772 in Virginia. That was 4 years before the Declaration of Independence.

He later moved to South Carolina where his son, Solomon Chapman, was born in 1802.

Solomon married midwife Polly in 1840. They were the parents of John Pinckney, born in Alabama. They later moved to Oden, Arkansas.