Obituaries Australia

By the death of Frederick William Chapman, at Randwick, this week, at the age of 94, another member of the pioneers of the North Coast district has been removed. Born in Princes-street, Sydney, in 1826, the deceased was educated at Sydney College (now the Sydney Grammar School). After a few years' mercantile experience in the shipping business of his father, the then owner of "Towns' Wharf," he went with his parents to the Macleay River about 1849, where Yarrabandini, Yarrahappeny, Tennessee, and other pastoral properties were acquired. Sheep-raising, was attempted on a moderate scale without success. The runs were then stocked with horses and cattle–a central cooperage and meat works being established for the use of the several stations, most of the meat production being packed in casks and shipped. Prime bullocks in those days were worth about £3 a head.

The town of Frederickton, on the Macleay River, was named after the deceased, who, about 1873, removed to the Clarence, where he embarked in business as a timber merchant, principally exporting hardwoods. Although from one 640-acre block on the Clarence River end of the Dorrigo plateau he took over 750,000 super feet of cedar, there was quite as much pine as cedar on the block which it did not pay to remove. The late Mr. Chapman was appointed a magistrate in 1869, and for some years acted as Commissioner for Crown Lands. For six successive years he was Mayor of Grafton.