Joseph John Chapman

Joseph John "Jose Juan" Chapman (1784–1849) was an American merchant sailor, then a crew member under the pirate Hippolyte Bouchard, then one of the earliest English-speaking settlers and builders of Mexican Alta California. Chapman was one of the first known American-born permanent residents of Alta California. The scanty and inconsistent historical record makes it difficult to be sure of many details of Chapman’s life, but he was a valued member of several early southern California settlements, and interacted with a number of historical characters.

Most sources say Joseph John Chapman was born in Boston, Massachusetts (a few say Maine) in 1784. Trained as a carpenter, blacksmith and shipbuilder, Chapman went to sea as a young man. Presumably, he left Boston on board an American merchant ship, but ended up on board a vessel under the command of the Argentine privateer Hippolyte Bouchard.

Sources disagree on how exactly Chapman came to be in Bouchard’s crew and how he left it. One story, (favored by Chapman himself) is that he was forcibly impressed into Bouchard's crew while on a stop in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). Another story is that he was in the crew of a Bouchard corvette named Santa Rosa which mutinied, sailed to Hawaii, and tried to sell the ship to Kamehameha I, ruler of Hawaii. Bouchard, returning from the Philippines, reacquired the ship and Chapman before that deal could be completed.

One way or another, Chapman was a Bouchard crewman during the 1818 attack on Monterey, California. At that point, the tales diverge again. Alta California governor Pablo Vicente de Solá reported that Chapman was one of three prisoners taken from one of Bouchard's two ships, the Santa Rosa, that surrendered after an artillery duel. A first-person account from the Bouchard crew says he was captured by Spanish soldiers during a sortie to the shore. Another variation says he was captured later, during an attack on Rancho Nuestra Señora del Refugio, on the coast north of Santa Barbara. Still another story combines the two, with Chapman first being captured at Monterey, then freed by Bouchard's raiding party, then captured a second time at Rancho Nuestra Señora del Refugio. In a variation of this last, Chapman deserted Bouchard at Refugio and made his way inland to Mission Santa Inez, where he surrendered. A later story, possibly told by a son concerned with family image, ignored the pirate episode altogether and claimed that Chapman entered California after being shipwrecked near San Pedro.

...
Wikipedia