INTRODUCTION
Chapman Family
The ancestry of Franklin Brooks Chapman is not known and little is known about his life up until his marriage to Hannah Caroline (Kate) Cooke on September 2, 1862, near the beginning of the Civil War. They were married at Kingston in Roane County, Tennessee. Only two months after the birth of his son, George Allen Chapman, Franklin joined the Union Army for a 3 year tour of duty on September 16, 1863 at Knoxville, Tennessee. He had served two years when the Civil War ended. He had been a courier in Battery C, 1st Battalion of the Light on Artillery.
While Franklin was stationed at Knoxville, he learned that Knoxville was to be burned so he instructed his wife to take their then 7 months old baby back to Euchee Landing for safety. She traveled by night, carrying the baby and finally made it to the home of Henry Hurst, a school teacher at Euchee.
At the end of the Civil War, he was discharged from the army on August 1, 1865 at Nashville, Tennessee. Because his brothr-in-law brought home news that Franklin was being released the next day after he, himself was released, a "welcome home celebration" was planned for him but he was never seen or heard tell of again. It is believed by his descendants that he was robbed and killed on his way home to Roane County.
Since Franklin did not make it home, his son remained in the home of Henry Hurst and Henry became the father that he had never know. When Henry Hurst moved to McMinn County, Tennessee, George moved with him after his mother remarried.
From George, the only child of Franklin Brooks Chapman, came the Chapman family as we know it today. His descendents have scattered to various areas of the country but still claim Roane, Meigs and McMinn counties as the origination of their roots.
(Taken from research done by Martha Haskins Davis, descendant of George and Naomi Moore Chapman)
