48 Beausejour Street, Gatineau, Quebec, Canada J8T-5V6
In August 1997, I acquired a 2 HP, Style ‘A,’ Canadian
Chapman gasoline engine built in Dundas, Ontario. This engine is
complete and everything is free on it. The farmer who sold me the
engine told me that his father brought this Chapman home in the
early forties, put it in one corner of the shed, where it was left
undisturbed for over fifty years, just waiting for me to come
around and get it. Unfortunately, nothing is known about this
Chapman’s prior working years.
The first thing I do before I start the restoration of an old
engine, is to gather as much information as I can about the company
that built the engine and about the engine itself. For more common
engines like Fairbanks-Morse and IHC it is relatively easy to find
old advertisement literature, instructions and parts manuals or
books that describe them. It is a different story when you try to
gather information on a small Canadian engine manufacturer from the
turn of the century.
The first place I looked for information about the Chapman
Engine & Manufacturing Company was in Wendel’s American
Gasoline Engines Since 1872 book. From it, I learned that Chapman
totally designed and built their engines in Canada. It said that
the Chapman Style ‘A’ was built only in the 2 HP size, the
Chapman Style ‘B’ was built in the 4 HP size and the
Chapman Style ‘C’ were built in 6, 8, 10, 12, and 16 HP
sizes. I personally know of two 7 HP Chapman engines, so I think
that the 7 HP was re-rated to 8 HP in the later years of
Chapman’s engine production.
Another good source of information on any engine is the brass
nameplate on the engine. On my Chapman, it said: Made by
‘Chapman Engine & Manufacturing Company Limited,’
Dundas, Ontario, Canada for the ‘Ontario Wind Engine & Pump
Company, Limited,’ Toronto-Winnipeg-Calgary. The tag also shows
that my Chapman is a 2 HP, Style ‘A,’ with a serial number
12177.
A few words about the Ontario Wind Engine & Pump Company
(OWE & PCo.) would be in order here. OWE & PCo. never built
any engines, but there are reports that they sold Stickney engines
as early as 1910. I can also attest that they sold Nelson Bros,
engines in the 1920s, as I own a ‘Little Jumbo’ that has an
OWE & PCo. name-plate on it. Some people have reported to me
that OWE & PCo. also sold some Goold, Shapley & Muir
engines at one time. Around 1910, Mr. Stephen H. Chapman was the
president of the Ontario Wind Engine & Pump Company Limited,
and he soon became one of the owners of the Chapman Engine &
Manufacturing Company of Dundas, Ontario thus the close
relationship between the two companies.
It seems that the Chapman Engine & Manufacturing Company of
Dundas, Ontario, started to build gasoline engines in the fall of
1911. During World War I (1914-1918) Chapman participated in the
war effort by producing shells. Sometime in 1917, a huge fire
destroyed most of Chapman’s buildings. Chapman had already had
some financial difficulties before, and the big fire only added to
their misery. In 1918, Chapman had to sell their assets to
liquidate their debts. That was the end of a fine Canadian builder
of a fine engine the Chapman engine.
At engine shows, have you ever noticed how often somebody will
come up to you and ask you the year your engine was built? If you
have a common engine like a Fairbanks-Morse or an IHC, you have no
problem in answering, as lists of serial numbers for each year an
engine was built can be easily obtained. But if you have a rare
engine, the years the engines were built and the total production
figures always remain a mystery. In the case of Chapman engines,
the mystery is about to be solved. So far, I was able to obtain the
serial number, style and horsepower rating from nine Chapman
engines of various sizes. I have noticed that the first two digits
on a Chapman’s serial number all start with one of 12, 13, 14,
15, 16, and 17. This is only a theory for now, but it seems that
the first two digits of a Chapman’s serial number represent the
year the engine was built and the remaining number could be the
engine number. So far, the smallest number I found is on my engine
with the serial number 12177, which could mean engine #177 was
built in 1912. The highest serial number is 171579, which could
mean engine #1579 built in 1917.
From this, it would appear that at least 1579 Chapman engines
were built between 1912 and 1917. These figures would be consistent
with the history of the Chapman Engine Manufacturing Company.
In order to further prove this theory about Chapman’s
production figures, I am asking all GEM subscribers who have a
Chapman engine, and everyone else who knows where to find one, to
send me the nametag information including the serial number, style
and serial numbers. For those Chapman engines that have lost their
nametag, the serial number can also be found stamped on the
machined edge of the crankcase’s hand-hole opening.
Please send the information about Chapman engines to: Denis
Rouleau at the above address, or E-mail at:
denis.rouleau@sympatico.ca. Thanks!