New London, CT Fishers Island Drowning 1788
July 2d, 1788, Capt. John Chapman and nine other persons, chiefly emigrants from Ireland, were drowned within twenty rods of the shore of Fisher's Island. The disaster was occasioned by the upsetting of two boats; one of them being deeply laden, was filling with water, and her people all seizing hold of the other, that also filled and sank. Capt. Chapman had just arrived with a company of emigrants, (probably about twenty,) and some of them being sick, he was attempting to land them on the island, where a tent was to be erected, in which they might perform the necessary period of quarantine. Capt. Chapman had served in the Revolutionary War, both in a naval and military capacity. He was a brother of Major James Chapman, who fell at Harlem Heights, in 1776, and of Lieut. Richard Chapman slain in Fort Griswold, in 1781.
History of New London, Connecticut: From the First Survey of the Coast in 1612 to 1860, page 577
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Transcribed by Linda Horton. Thank you, Linda!
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