Harry J. Chapman

(1856-     )
Maine

"H. J. Chapman was born in Passadumkeag, Me., in 1856, and was reared in Orrington. His father, Chas. D. Chapman, has been prominent in the politics of his county, and has held many important offices. [Chapman] is a graduate of the East Maine Conference Seminary, Bucksport, and of the Law Department of the University of Wisconsin, where he received the degree of LL.B. He now has an office in Bangor." [George Bancroft Griffith (ed.), The Poets of Maine 809 (Portland, Maine, Elwell, Pickard & Co., 1888)] [According to Albert Nelson Maruqis, Who's Who in New England, Chapman served as judge of Bangor Municipal Court, 1895-1902. He was an instructor at the Univerof Maine Law School after 1903, and became an associate professor there in 1912.]

In the "News Items" section of The American Lawyer, December, 1895, p. 554, 555, we find the following:

Harry J. Chapman, Esq., the well-known attorney of Bangor, has just received a patent on his new invention, a fog sigal [sic] of unique design. The signal consists of a long metal tube, practically a hollow stell mast, about thirty feet in length. This is erected on a ledge in the desired postion for the warning of mariners, and is secured to an upright position by powerful braces, like the stays of a steamer's funnel. Inside the tube or tower, which is about fifteen inchies in outside diameter, is placed the mechanism. The bell is located on the top of the tube, and is the only part of the cotrivance which is exposed to the weather. When the tube sits in its proper position i the water several feet of it are submerged so that the big float which works up and down within it rests on the surface of the waves. To the top of this float is attached a cord, which again is connected with a weight which rings the bell every time a wave raises the level of the water in the tube and consequently sends the float up a proportionate distance. In this manner the bell is rung by every wave.