In today’s column, I am recalling when I visited Mr. and Mrs. Lakey, who resided in a former company home of the Chapman Slate Company. Many of these homes still grace the small Northampton County borough. Mrs. Betty James Lakey remembered when the slate quarries attracted hundreds of slaters to the community. Chapman’s peak population reached 700 in the early 1900s. Today, the borough is home to about 200 residents.

In the boom days, slaters boarded at many homes.

“We had five boarders,” Betty remembered. “They were all single, hardworking men and ate their meals at a long table in our kitchen.

“Once a month, the men would give me 25 cents. I saved the quarters and went to the Bath bank and started a savings account.

“My mother did baking, washing and cooking. The wash machine was hand-operated until we had a gasoline-operated machine in the backyard.”

One of the boarders was Albert Lakey. His son would later marry Betty James, who became Mrs. Wilfred Lakey.

“In Chapman, we had one doctor, Dr. Milton Phillips, who delivered many Chapman children in their homes,” she said. “I was delivered at home by the doctor. The doctor started his practice with a horse and buggy.”

Mr. Lakey recalled, “I went to his office with a cyst on my eye, and he removed it. The fee was 50 cents.

“If you needed a tooth to be removed, he wore a dentist cap and extracted the tooth. One day he fell while trimming a tree and died. He was the last doctor to practice in Chapmans.”

The borough had two stores - a company store and Cyrus Minnich’s store.

“As a youngster, I worked there after school, filling the shelves, weighing sugar, which came in bulk, and cleaning up,” Mr. Lakey recalls. “I was paid 50 cents a week. “The store was open six days a week, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday if a customer needed something.

“During the winter, the store was a hangout for quarry workers when they weren’t working. Cards and checkers were played with plenty of conversation until 2:30 a.m.!”

Mr. Lakey did not follow his father to the quarry. After working at the store, he was hired as a machine trainee.

On Friday, Nov. 13, 1942, he heard the sad news that Chapman Slate Company closed. Two years later, in 1944, Owen Jones, the former quarry superintendent, purchased the quarry in an attempt to make it profitable and provide employment for some of the remaining slates. Twenty-five slaters continued to process slate.

Mr. Jones had a large supply of slate to sell to past customers, hoping the operation would resume quarry production, but sadly, the quarry remained silent. The era of slate, “the magic stone,” was over.

For 109 years, the Chapman quarries had provided gainful employment for hundreds of slaters. They attracted Welsh slaters who brought with them their work ethic, religion and heritage.

When I left the Borough of Chapman, I saw the old quarry and the lone smoke stack from the slate processing plant. The slaters are all gone; the old whistle sounds no more. Only memories remain.

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In two weeks, a Marine from Chapman!