Politics / Science & invention / Business & brands
Marshall Chapin
1798–1838 · physician, pharmacist, mayor of Detroit
Doctor who opened Detroit's first drugstore in 1819, served as mayor in 1831 and 1833 and was city physician during the cholera epidemics of 1832 and 1834.
- Born
Bernardston, Massachusetts- Died
Detroit, Michigan
aged 40- Detroit years
- 1819–1838
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Marshall Chapin was born in Massachusetts in 1798, one of nine children of a doctor, grew up in western New York and trained in medicine at Geneva Academy and with an uncle in Buffalo, receiving his degree in 1819. That same year he moved to Detroit and, backed by his uncle, opened the town's first drugstore while also practicing as a physician; he was soon appointed doctor to the garrison at Fort Shelby. He entered city government as an alderman in 1826 and 1827 and was elected mayor in 1831 and again in 1833. When cholera reached Detroit in 1832, carried by troops headed for the Black Hawk War, he served as city physician, and he took the post again during the deadlier outbreak of 1834. He died of heart disease in Detroit; his drugstore carried on under his son-in-law and later owners into the 1880s.
Highlights
- Opened Detroit's first drugstore (1819)
- Mayor of Detroit in 1831 and 1833
- City physician during the cholera epidemics of 1832 and 1834
- Physician to the Fort Shelby garrison