Robert Chapman was born in New York City November 4, 1853, and received his early education in the New York public schools. When thirteen years of age he entered the employ of the old Indemnity Insurance Company, of which Colonel Emmons Clark, now Secretary of the New York Board of Health, was Secretary. He remained with that corporation until it failed, about two years later, when lie associated himself with the Harmony Insurance Company, which he left in 1871 to accept a position with the Citizens' Insurance Company of New York. Since then he has been actively and prominently identified with that company, having charge at the present time of its loss department.

Mr. Chapman's career of nearly thirty-five years in the fire insurance business has given him an unusually broad experience in underwriting, and the various positions which lie has held have enabled him to gain a practical knowledge of every branch. An expert mathematician, he is recognized as authority, not only in the lines with which he has been most intimately connected, but in the business generally, and in every capacity he has achieved eminent success. In politics he is an ardent Republican. He is a member of the Insurance Clerks' Association of New York, of Lafayette Camp, Sons of Veterans, of New York City, and of the Seventh Regiment Veterans, having been an active member of the Seventh Regiment, N. G. N. Y., from 1873 to 1878. In 1890 he settled in Arlington, N. J., where he still resides, and where he has wielded no small influence in advancing the best interests of the town.