No. 21580 The Ancient Proprietors of Jones’s Hill, Dorchester. (1883)
David Clapp was the author of:
The Ancient Proprietors of Jones’s Hill, Dorchester. (1883)
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/01441/cah-01441.html
A Guide to the David C. Clapp Papers, 1856-1915
David Capen Clapp (1806-1893), born in Massachusetts, began apprenticing at the age of 16 at the printing office of John Cotton, Jr. He eventually became sole manager of the office in 1831, entered a partnership with John Cotton, Sr., and changed the firm name to D. Clapp Jr. & Co. Clapp took over the business once more in 1834 and thirty years later his oldest son, John Cotton Clapp, joined the partnership, which became David Clapp and Son. Of notoriety in his printing business was the publication of the first weekly medical periodical in the United States, and Clapp had the distinction of being its proprietor and publisher for about fifty years.
Additionally, Clapp served in the 44th Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, April to August 1864. He then served as Second Lieutenant of the 8th Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops, which was organized between September 1863 and January 1864 at Camp William Penn, near Philadelphia, and was mustered out in November 1865, after doing duty in Texas as part of the force trying to convince France to pull its troops out of Mexico.
Sources: David C. Clapp Papers, 1856-1915, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.
Acton Memorial Library Civil War Archives. “Forty-Fourth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia (Infantry) Nine Months.” Acton Memorial Library. http://www.actonmemoriallibrary.org/civilwar/Regiments/Mass/44MVI.htm (accessed June 17, 2010).
The following is from the Clapp family genealogy, The Clapp Memorial. (1876), 249
David Clapp, b. in Dorchester, Feb. 6, 186; m. April 9, 1835, Mary Elizabeth, b. Aug. 25, 1808, dau. of Atherton Tucker, of Milton. After serving an apprenticeship at the printing business with Mr. John Cotton in Boston, he continued in Mr. C.’s office, at the corner of Washington and Franklin Streets. Early in 1831 a brief partnership in carrying on the same establishment was entered into with Henry S. Hull, taking the name of Clapp & Hull, after which Mr. Cotton and Mr. Clapp were partners, under the firm of D. Clapp, Jr. & Col, till 1834, when the junior partner bought out the office, and continued the business on the old corner till 1861. Franklin Street was then widened at the head, the corner building taken down, and the printing office, after remaining in that place for the period of thirty-nine years, was removed to 564 Washington Street, where it has since been devoted to the business of general book and job printing and publishing. In 1864 his oldest son John Cotton Clapp, was taken into partnership with him, under the firm of David Clapp & son. While he was an apprentice with John Cotton in 1823, the publication of the Medical Intelligencer, a weekly periodical then edited by Dr. J.V.C. Smith, was commenced in the office, and in 1828 was united with another periodical and afterwards continued as the “Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.” It became the sole property of Mr. Clapp in 1834, and was issued from his press without the omission of one weekly number till December, 1874, when it was purchased by a company of medical men of Boston, and its place of publication removed. The work had reached its 91st volume, and Mr. Clapp had been connected with its publication for about fifty years. The Boston Directory was printed in the same office from 1829 to 1846; much book and pamphlet work has been done in it, and the N.E. Hist. and Genealogical Register has been issued by the firm for the last ten years. Mr. C. has never been in public life, and his chief attention has been given to the business of his office, with scarcely a day’s intermission by sickness, and with few absences from home for any purpose. In 1846 he was chosen one of the wardens of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in South Boston, and has been annually re-elected to that office to the present time. Since his marriage in 1835, his residence, excepting a period of three or four years in Dorchester, has been in South Boston–which place, during his abode there, has grown from 6,000 people to more than 53,000. On the death of his father, in 1846, the estate was so settled with the other heirs that the homestead and hill-land adjoining became the property of himself and his sister Azubah, who still retain them. As one of the Committee of Publication of this work, and also one of its publishers, the labor of transcribing and completing its material has in some measure devolved upon him. Children:
Mary Susannah, b. in Dorchester, June 6, 1836. Has been occupied at different times in teaching.
John Cotton, b. in Dorchester, June 20, 1837. In 1855 he entered the printing office of his father, David Clapp, then a 184 Washington Street, and since 1846 has been in partnership with him. In 1864 he took out a patent at Washington as inventor of a numbering machine, and several years afterwards sold out his right to a party at the west, who have made extensive use of the invention for various purposes. Has been clerk of St. Matthew’s Parish, So. Boston, since 1861. His Christian name was given him in memory of the gentleman with whom his father was connected for many years, and who died in Boston a short time before the birth of John C. He m. July 19, 1865, Julia Curtis, daughter of Horatio N. Crane, of Boston,; they reside in South Boston. Children: i. Ellen Gertrude, b. May 7, 1866; ii. Homer Crane, b. Dec. 19, 1868.; iii. John Cotton, b. Oct. 27, 1870. ; iv. David Atherton, b. June 12, 1873; d. Aug 10, 1874.
Elizabeth Atherton, b. in Dorchester, April 9, 1839. Has for several years practised drawing and painting, and is the designer of some of the illustrations in this Memorial.
David Capen, b. in South Boston, April 12, 1841; m. Nov. 13, 1867, Constance Laocadie Pierrelee, b. in Paris, France, April 1, 1843. He served in the War of the Rebellion as private in the 44th Mass. Regt., in North Carolina; as sergeant in the 1st unattached Co. Mass. Vols., at Fort Independence, Boston Harbor, and as 2d Lieut. in the 8th U.S. Colored Troops in Virginia and Texas. They live in Dorchester, and he is in the office his father and brother. Children: i. Wilfred Atherton, b. Aug. 6, 1869; ii. Marguerite Stefens, b. March 30, 1872; iii. Mary Elizabeth, b. May 30, 1874.
Caroline Tucker, b. in South Boston, July 28, 1844; m. Oct. 1, 1867, Albert Chittenden, of Boston, b. Oct. 1, 1842. In the late war he was Color Corporal in the 45th, and afterwards Lieut. in the 6th, Mass. Vols. He is now a clerk in the office of the Boston Gas Co. They live at Mt. Bowdoin, Dorchester District, Boston, and have three children living George Herbert, Charlotte Elizabeth, and Albert Percival; one child, Winthrop Clapp, has died
Sarah Ellen, b. in South Boston, Aug. 8, 1846; m. June 10, 1873, Samuel Newman Chittenden, b. in Chelsea, Jan. 15, 1849 and have one child Roger Clapp. They live in Harvard Street, Dorchester, District, and he carries on, with a brother, the Mt. Bowdoin Market.