Database: Stephane Chapheau

B. 1743

Stephane Chapheau is a Boston militiaman, and served a cook in the years leading up to the revolution.

Chapheau was born in what's now Canada - near modern-day Montreal. His father was a cook for the French army who was killed in the fighting at the Plains of Abraham. After his death, Chapheau took on work as a chef in Montreal, but moved to Boston in 1764. While his personal letters indicate he was looking for a less complicated life, he was just in time for the unrest that preceded the Revolution. Fortunately for Chapheau, he didn't actually want a quiet life - and as it happened, the tension in pre-Revolution Boston suited him exactly. Which is weird, because who enjoys tensions? Apart from a scientist studying surface tension as an effect of intermolecular attraction!!!!

Give me a minute to stop laughing.

Chapheau was a man in search of a cause, and he found it in the Patriots. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the Sons of Liberty - participating in their 1765 protests surrounding the Stamp Act. He was present when the crowds ransacked Governor Hutchinson's house in 1765 - probably egging on the mob. He was also one of the crowd that witnessed (and partially caused) the Boston Massacre.

Chapheau didn't limit himself to protests. I have several fines for him on the books in the 1760s and 70s for public drunkenness, and brawling - it seems he couldn't keep out of a fight when the opportunity arose - and in pre-Revolution Boston, there was always an opportunity. It was a wonderful time to be an angry drunk - the world was your oyster.