Background
Chapin, Edwin Hubbell was born on December 29, 1814 in Union Village, New York, United States. Son of Alpheus and Beulah (Hubbell) Chapin.
Chapin, Edwin Hubbell was born on December 29, 1814 in Union Village, New York, United States. Son of Alpheus and Beulah (Hubbell) Chapin.
He did not attend college, but completed his formal education in a seminary at Bennington, Vermont.
He was also a poet, responsible for the poem Burial at Sea, which was the origin of a famous folk song, Bury Maine Not on the Lone Prairie. At the age of twenty-four, after a course of theological study, he was invited to take charge of the pulpit of the Universalist of Richmond, Virginia, and was ordained as a pastor in 1838. Two years afterward, he moved to Charlestown, Massachusetts, and in 1840 he accepted the pastorate of the School Street, in Boston.
In 1848 he settled in New York as pastor of the Fourth Universalist, the church of which was then located on Broadway.
Here he labored for a period extending over eighteen years, drawing large congregations. A new edifice, known as the Church of the Divine Paternity, was erected on the corner of 5th Avenue and 45th Street, and dedicated on the 3rd day of December, 1866.
Chapin became widely known as an orator and author of works including the Crown of Thorns, Discourses on the Lord"s Prayer, Characters of the Gospel, illustrating phases of the present day, Moral Aspects of City Life, and Humanity in the City. He spoke at Frankfort-on-the-Main, before the World"s Peace Convention in 1850.
At the Kossuth Banquet.
At the Publishers" Association Festival, and at the opening of the New York Crystal Palace. Harvard College conferred an honorary Doctor of Divinity upon Chapin in 1856. He was one of the chief actors in what was called the "Broad Church Movement".
He was the author of the poem Ocean Burial, which was put to music by George North. Allen.
The song which it became was published widely. lieutenant became a sailor"s song and also the beginnings for another song, Bury Maine Not on the Lone Prairie.
He wrote the poem in his youth and it was published in September 1839 in Poe"s Southern Literary Messenger. In 1854 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary member.
The Chapin Memorial Church at Oneonta, New York was dedicated to him in 1894.
A chasm in the rocky coast near his home in Pigeon Cove is named Chapin"s Gully where Chapin often swam.
He was a trustee of Bellevue Medical College and Hospital, and a member of: the State Historical, the beneficent society called the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the prestigious Century Club, composed of "authors, artists, and amateurs of letters and the fine arts
Married Harriet Newland, 1838.