Daniel C. Chapman

Daniel C. Chapman was born in South Corinth, Vermont in 1826 to a farmer. He attended Bradford Academy, taught for several years, and then learned the machinist's trade in Manchester, New Hampshire. In 1852, he went to New York City where he made sewing machines, including the first with a buttonholer. In 1856 he went to California with his sewing machine business but returned in 1858.

In 1863, he became a photographer and experimented with bromide plates. His gallery was in the upper part of the Bowery.

His photographic and mechanical skills brought him to Lewis M. Rutherfurd's attention. Rutherfurd hired him in 1868 as an assistant in his private observatory at 11th Street and 2nd Avenue. Rutherfurd, an amateur astronomer and lawyer by profession designed a new type of ruling engine, and one of Chapman's duties was to make diffraction gratings.

In 1870, he was chosen to be photographer for the US expedition to observe the total solar eclipse. Afterwards, he returned to Rutherfurd's observatory. In 1879, Henry Draper hired him as his assistant in his observatory where he carried out photographic investigations of stellar spectra. After Draper's death, Chapman became chief photographer of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey based in Washington, DC. He also worked in the Bureau of Weights and Measures.