Blanche Chapman

Blanche Chapman (November 1, 1851 – December 7, 1941) was an American actress born in Covington, Kentucky, whose Broadway career spanned from 1866 to 1924. She came from a deeply rooted theatrical family: her great-great-grandfather was Thomas Chapman, and her grandfather, Samuel Chapman, had worked as an actor at Covent Garden. Her father introduced her to the stage at just three months of age, bringing her on during his performance in Mr. and Mrs. Peter White. Her sister, Ella Chapman, also pursued an acting career, and the two frequently appeared together in productions at theaters managed by John T. Ford.

Chapman attended a convent school at age sixteen, where one of her classmates was Marion Booth, a relative of John Wilkes Booth. Early in her professional life, she shared the stage with notable figures including Dion Boucicault, John T. Raymond, Edwin Booth, John McCullough, and Joseph Jefferson. In 1874, she and Ella performed together under the billing "The Beautiful Chapman Sisters" at the Metropolitan Theatre in San Francisco. It was during one of those performances that David Belasco made his stage debut, stepping in as a fill-in for the sisters during a costume change. Chapman also starred in numerous Gilbert and Sullivan productions throughout her career.

In 1875, Chapman married Henry Clay Ford, the manager of the Lincoln Theatre. The couple settled in Washington, D.C., at Logan Circle and had three children: Harry Chapman Ford, who became a playwright and novelist; Frank Ford, who worked as a drama teacher; and George Ford, an actor-manager whose wife was comedy actress Helen Ford. Chapman performed regularly in New York during this period, and after Henry retired from the theater, the family relocated first to New York City and then to Rutherford, New Jersey.

Among her Broadway credits, Chapman starred in the musical An Arabian Girl and 40 Thieves and in The Sheep's Foot, and appeared in the musical The Sultan of Sulu, the musical The Vanderbilt Cup, and the play The Deep Tangled Wildwood, along with other productions across her lengthy career.

Following Henry's death in 1915, Chapman became involved in a notable episode connected to the Lincoln assassination. In 1929, she petitioned the Smithsonian Institution for the return of the armchair in which Abraham Lincoln had been shot, which Henry had purchased and installed at Ford's Theatre to provide Lincoln a more comfortable seat. The Smithsonian returned the chair, and within weeks Chapman contacted Henry Ford to inquire whether he wished to purchase it for his museum. He declined, and in December 1929 she sold the chair at auction through the American Art Association for $2,400. Chapman died at her home in Rutherford, New Jersey, in 1941.