Not frequently in the state of Montana are 80th birthdays celebrated, but It was a festivity, of this sort that called a social gathering together at the home of Mr. and Mrs. William Chapman at 718 South Montana street Thursday afternoon. The occasion was the 80th birthday of Mrs. Chapman and a few choice friends of the lady called to pay their respects and congratulate her upon the happy return of her anniversary. The life story of Mr. and Mrs. Chapman is a charming tale. So long ago that the time seems dim in the distance of years they began life together; they have passed the three score and ten milepost on life's road and still journey serenely on down the slope of age content if they can rest together when the journey is done. Children, grandchildren and great grandchildren have grown up around them and the circle of their years has been set with many jewels of joy. Both the aged people are happy and, after all, what happi- ness is there so exquisite as that which comes as the fruit of honorable age ripening as life's sun declines? It was during the month of April, 1854, when this worthy couple were married. The wedding took place in Winchester, Scott county, Ill. The bride had been born 33 years before in Anderson county, Tenn.. and emigrated to Illinois with her parents when the early pioneers traveled on horseback over the wide stretches of prairie land. Mr. Chapman was 32 years of age when the marriage ceremony, united the twain.  His life began in Knoxville, Tenn., and he emigrated to Illinois in 1828.  Just prior to his marriage he had been on a trip to the  placer diggings of California and came back a bronzed and bearded "forty-niner" to secure a greater fortune tune that was ever panned from the sands of the Sierras' slopes. The couple lived in Winchester from the date of their marriage until 1888. Mr. Chapman had since his youth been familiar with the affairs of a law office. and during the year of his marriage he was licensed to practice law. Fortune smiled upon him and a good law practice and the accumulations of property that come with business energy well directed made him rich. War times increased his wealth so fast that he was counted among the prosperous when the panic of 1873 swept out from the financial centers of the country and tightened the money mar- ket suddenly and grievously. The foundations of Mr. Chapman's fortune crumbled and almost all of his property was swept away during the ill-starred years following the panic. Then the couple came to Wichita. Kan., to begin life anew. The western spirit was in the air of Wichita and after two years' residence there Mr. Chapman joined the procession of settlers that was moving into the Northwest and settled in Butte. He has practiced law here since that time, always living in comfort, but never rich except in the serene domestic joys that are too often strangers to mere money getting. Three children are living the fruit of the union of Mr. and Mrs. Chapman. Mrs. Eva C. Graves, their eldest daughter, lives in this city and is the mother of three grandchildren of the aged couple, and these branches of the house of Chapman have all married but one, and great-grandchildren of Mr. and Mrs. Chapman have been born and are growing up in Butte. Little Dorothy Williams, great granddaughter of the octogenarians, is the youngest toddler that has come to gladden the family circle and unite the extremes of youth and age with ties of affection. The other children of Mr. and Mrs. Chapman are Mrs. McDonough, who resides at Winchester, Ill., and Albert Chapman, the only son, a resident of Cheyenne, Wyo. Although Mr. and Mrs. Chapman are aged beyond the alloted span of life, both are cheerful, happy, contented and, withal, vigorous after the fashion of well preserved age. Oct. 9 of next year Mr. Chapman will round out his three score and 20, but his form is erect and his step as steady as in the days when he looked out on life from the prime of his life. He walks to his office every day from his home on South Montana street and nimbly climbs the stairs. ''It's good exercise. shrewdly observes the aged lawyer. And his wife shares in the good health and abundant spirits that have blessed this couple through their lives. She has a fund of humor that flows like sweet waters through, all her reminiscences of other days, and her memory is so tenacious that events which *the younger generation must verifv by history come to her with the vividness of the happenings of yesterday. Both knew Abraham Lincoln in the old days, and Stephen A. Douglas was a vi!lage schoolmaster when this remarkable twain were young, and made the acquaintance of the men Illinois sent onto the national stage to be conspicuous figures in the drama of the civil war. At the birthday party of Mrs. Chapman Thursday afternoon were a number of the lady friends of the aged lady. There was a quantity of relics of the youth of the hostess on exhibition at the party. A bedspread which had been woven by Mrs. Chapman from yarn she spun at the primitive spinning wheel when she was a girl was one of the exhibits suggesting the activity and industry with which her girlhood's years were crowded. The following is the list of the guests at the party: Mrs. F. E. Curtis, Mrs. Thomas Richards,  Mrs. E. S. Wells, Mrs. J. Kraffganz,  Mrs. R. B. Wallace, Mrs. Charles Passmore, Mrs. E. Carmen. Mrs. H. S. Clark. Mrs. A. A. Crossman. Mrs. G. W. Story, Mrs. J. W. Naughton. Mrs. E. D. Aiken. Mrs. H. Loeber, Mrs. Marnaman and Miss Myrtle Carmen. Source:  Anaconda Standard, Anaconda, Montana March 17, 1901 Note:  The article has photos of the Chapmans and of their great-granddaughter Dorothy Williams The article does not give Mrs. Chapman's maiden name.  A quick check of Scott County, Illinois marriages and ancestry.com indicates that she was Anna Clarkson.