John Cotton Clapp, 1837-1922
From American Series of Popular Biographies. Massachusetts Edition. This Volume Contains Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (Boston: Graves & Steinbarger, 1891)
JOHN COTTON CLAPP, a representative of one of the oldest families in Dorchester, was born in that town, June 30, 1837. He is a son of David and Mary Elizabeth (Tucker) Clapp, and is seventh in line of descent from Nicholas Clap, born in England in 1612, who was the founder of this branch of the family in America.
This early ancestor, who was the fourth son of Richard Clap of England (see Genealogy of the Clapp Family), probably came to Dorchester in 1633. His son Nathaniel, who is next in line of descent, was born in Dorchester, September 15, 1640, and died May 16, 1707. Nathaniel’s son Jonathan, of the third generation, was born in Dorchester, August 31, 1673, and died there January 2, 1723. He married Sarah Capen of Dorchester, June 23, 1703. David Clapp, son of Jonathan and Sarah, was born in Dorchester, November 11, 1720, and died there, August 17, 1787. He married June 20, 1754, Ruth Humphreys. They were the parents of David Clapp, second, born in Dorchester, November 30, 1759, who died there May 5, 1846. This second David was a Revolutionary soldier, serving at various times during the war. He married first, December 9, 1794, Susannah Humphreys, of Dorchester, who died leaving no children. He married second, July 28, 1801, Azubah Capen, of Stoughton.
Their son, David Clapp, third, father of John Cotton Clapp, was born in Dorchester, February 6, 1806. He served an apprenticeship to the printer’s trade with the Hon. John Cotton, of Boston, in whose office, at the corner of Washington and Franklin Streets, he continued for some years subsequently as a journeyman. Mr. Cotton was a direct descendant of the Rev. John Cotton, second minister of the First Church in Boston, who came from Boston, England, and in whose honor the New England metropolis received its name. After a brief partnership, in 1831, with Mr. Hull, and also later with Mr. Cotton, in 1834, Mr. Clapp purchased the business, which he continued to carry on at the same location till 1861. Franklin Street was then widened at its head, and the printing office, after remaining in that place for a period of thirty-nine years, was removed to 334 (in 1875 changed to 564) Washington Street. Here it remained until 1883, when it was removed to 35 Bedford High Street. In 1889 it was again removed, to 115 High Street, and 1895 to 291 Congress Street. Mr. Clapp was married April, 9, 1835 to Mary Elizabeth Tucker, daughter of Atherton Tucker, of Milton. She as born August 25, 1808, and was a descendant of Robert Tucker, of Milton, who came to this country from England early in the seventeenth century, and many of whose descendants have always lived in Dorchester and Milton. She died in October, 1893. They had six children, all of whom were living until the death of the youngest in 1896. Mr. David Clapp died in 1893.
John Cotton Clapp, though born in Dorchester, as were his five ancestors in a continuous line since 1640, was brought up from childhood in South Boston, whither his parents removed in 1839. His first and second names were given him in memory of the Hon. John Cotton above mentioned. He was educated first in the old Hawes School at South Boston, which he left in 1849 to attend for a year or two a boarding-school in Newton Lower Falls, kept by R.B. Blasdell. In 1851, he entered Chauncy Hall School, located in Chauncy Place, Boston, which formed the northerly half of what is now Chauncy Street, a brick wall then separating it from Rowe Place, which formed the southerly side. It was at that time under the charge of Gideon French Thayer and Thomas Cushing. Here he remained three years. In 1856 he entered his father’s printing-office. In 1864 he was admitted a partner (the firm name being David Clapp & Son), and since that time he has been actively and unremittingly engaged in the same business. At the present time he is in partnership with his brother, David C. Clapp, at 291 Congress Street, the office being now one of the oldest in the country. Some years ago he took out a patent for a numbering machine, which has since been extensively used for various purposes, and which was sold to a firm in the West. He also secured a patent on a brake for printing-presses.
For many years he has been connected in various capacities with St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, South Boston. He was for some time its treasurer, for thirty-five successive years its clerk, for the past eight years one of its delegates to the Diocesan Convention, and is now its Senior Warden. He has been a member of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association for the past thirty years, is now a life member of the same, and has served for three years as one of its Committee of Relief; is a member of the Paul Revere Association of Boston; of the New England Historic Genealogical Society; of the Old Boston School Boys’ Association; and of the Old Hawes School Boys’ Association , of which he has been for some time treasurer.
He resided in South Boston until April 1896, when he removed to Dorchester. Here he is now living on Jones’s Hill, within a few rods of the house that was built by his grandfather in 1794, and in which both his father and himself were born. The old estate, which has been in the family for nearly one hundred and fifty years (being purchased by his great grandfather in 1755) , has lately been intersected by a street (on which he resides) running from Cushing Avenue to Stoughton Street, called Salcombe Street, after the English town from which some of the Clapps emigrated.
Mr. Clapp was married July 19, 1865, to Miss Julia Curtis, daughter of the later Horatio Nelson Crane, of Boston, who was descended in a direct line from Henry Crane, of Milton, Mass., born in England in 1621. She was born in South Boston, November 3, 1837. They have had four children, of whom only John C. Clapp, Jr., an architect in Boston, born in South Boston, October 27, 1870, is now living.