[7][5] She taught school in Newton, Iowa in the fall of 1856 and the winter following, on going to the village to be examined for teaching, she got lost on the prairie in a snowstorm.
When she presented herself to the county examiner, he remarked, "I guess you will do; pretty plucky girl anyhow," and she received her certificate.
[7] She helped organize the first society for the purpose of sending sanitary supplies to the Union soldiers in the field during the Civil War.
[1] In December 1867, Chapin made her first literary venture by publishing a history of Marshall County, Iowa.
Lot Thomas, Mrs. Ehwalan, Mrs. Rachel Brown, Mrs. Delos Arnold, and Mrs. Mary Holmes, called a meeting at Rice's Hall, which was then used for public purposes, over the Whitton & Whithead store.
[7] In the fall of 1877, Chapin went to California on account of her daughter's health, and in 1878, at Los Angeles, began the publication of the San Gabriel Valley News.
In August and September 1878, she was engaged as the private secretary of Matilda Fletcher, in Chicago, and acted as correspondent for Iowa newspapers.
[7] In December 1879, Chapin went to Washington, D.C., and obtained a position in the fourth auditor's office, United States Department of the Treasury.
During her stay in Washington, she corresponded[9] to the Davenport Gazette, The Des Moines Register, Sioux City Journal, and Marshalltown Times.
[1] In 1882, at the James A. Garfield memorial fair in Washington, D.C., she was vice-president for Iowa at the place assigned for the state.
The convention adopted a platform favoring woman suffrage, pensions for all needy soldiers and sailors, protective tariff, with free sugar and lumber, and repeal of tax on whisky and tobacco, and against unrestricted emigration.
In 1893, she was engaged in the publication of The Pioneer, a monthly paper devoted to Marshall County history, and that was her last publishing venture, aside from outside newspaper correspondence.
[7] Chapin died at Marshalltown, Iowa, August 20, 1901, due to valvular heart disease,[1] and was buried at Riverside Cemetery in that city.
Her obituary in the Evening Times Republican stated: "Probably no other Marshalltown woman attained such prominence as did she in her prime and some of her literary ventures, particularly those of a historical nature and referring to pioneer days in Iowa, will live forever.