Springfield-Greene
County LibraryEarly and Recent History and Genealogical Records
of Many of the Representative Citizens
LEWIS E. CHAPPELL. The influence of a good dairy in any locality can hardly be measured in money value. A good example of how the dairy will pulverize the farm mortgages and establish bank accounts may be seen in the transformations which have taken place in some of the localities of the Ozarks during the past few years. The value of well-managed dairies has been manifest in the growth of bank accounts. The real value of dairying to the farmers in any community is not in the fact alone that the keeping of cows will increase the fertility of the soil and make the farm more productive, but the big thing is the fact that every time a farmer takes a can of milk to the market he has increased his credit with every man he has dealings with in the community. One of the leading dairymen of Greene county is Lewis E. Chappell, whose sanitary and modernly equipped dairy and well-kept farm is located just southeast of Springfield.
Mr. Chappell was born on March 7, 1854, in the state of New York. He is a son of S. E. and Cordelia M. (Baker) Chappell. The father died in 1902; the mother's death occurred in 1860. They were both natives of New York state, and there they grew up and were married. They received good educations, the father being a graduate of Hamilton College in his native state, and the mother was a graduate of Bosser College in Poughkeepsie, that state. They spent their active lives in agricultural pursuits. When our subject was three years of age he removed with his parents to Cass county, Michigan, where they lived until our subject was twelve years of age, and where the death of his mother occurred, and while there the Civil war came on and the father enlisted, in 1861, in Edwinsburg, in a Michigan regiment, and he was made hospital steward, in which capacity he served for two years, then spent two years more as a regular soldier and saw considerable hard service. After being honorably discharged from the service he returned to Michigan, where he made his home most of the time during the rest of his life.
Lewis E. Chappell spent his boyhood on the farm in Michigan and he received a common school education. In 1866 he went with an uncle to Henry county, Missouri, and settled on a farm, where our subject remained seven years, or until he was nineteen years old, when he went to Montana with Doctor Hayden, a government surveyor, and with him covered a large portion of the upper Rocky Mountain country, remaining in the West eight years, spending the latter part of the time in Mexico. Then returning to Henry county, Missouri, he remained there three years, carrying the mail on a star route, during which time he traveled in every state in the Union. In 1895 he came to Greene county, rented a farm on which he soon had a good start, and in 1906 he bought eighty acres southeast of Springfield about two miles from town, and this he has improved, erecting most of his buildings, which are modern and substantial, conveniently arranged for a dairy, including a large milk house, silo, etc. He started out with six cows and on rented land, and by industry, good management and honest dealings with his customers, he has gradually built up one of the Most extensive, up-to-date and most desirable dairies in the Southwest, and his products are finding a ready market at all seasons owing to their superior quality. He milks his evening milk separately puts the cream on ice, and it is taken out in the morning, and he puts it on the market without any "doctoring"--selling four percent milk from Holstein, Durham and Jersey cows, all a good grade and kept in the best of health, his herd now consisting of forty cows. He uses a gasoline engine to run his separator, all his mixed grade being four per cent. He runs two wagons to the city to haul his milk to market. His dairy is under the name of L. E. Chappell & Sons.
Mr. Chappell was married on March 1, 1882, to Nancy Jane Norris, who was born in Ohio, where her family had long resided. To our subject and wife six children have been born, namely: Blanche, born in 1879, married Doctor McCandless, of Kansas City; Ruth, born in 1892, married Henry LeCompte, and they live in Springfield; Fred, born in 1884, is assisting his father in the dairy business; Nettie, born in 1891, married H. B. McCammon, and they live in Colorado; Charles J., born in 1893, is also with his father in the dairy business; Esther, born in 1896, married Lem Fisher, and they live in Springfield.
Politically, Mr. Chappell is a Republican, and fraternally he belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America.
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