Buildings of New England

The Chapin Mausoleum was built as a memorial to Chester and Dorcas Chapin by their son, Chester W. Chapin Jr. Located in the Chicopee Street Cemetery in Chicopee, Massachusetts, the otherwise ordinary burial ground is adorned by this stately mausoleum, which was designed by none other than Louis Comfort Tiffany. Chester W. Chapin, the father of the mausoleum builder, was one of the Connecticut Valley’ s most important 19th century businessmen. After more humble beginnings operating a store, Chapin operated a business for coaches and steamboats, and later, he became president and director of the Western Railroad Corporation (1854 to 1867), and president of the Boston and Albany Railroad Company (1868 to 1878). He was elected as a Democrat to the US House of Representatives and served from 1875 to March 3, 1877. His son, Chester Williams Chapin (1842-1922), followed his father’s footsteps and serves as president of the New York & New Haven Steamship Company and one of the organizers of the Central New England Railroad. Chapin Jr. hired Louis Comfort Tiffany to design and decorate this mausoleum as a memorial to his parents, in the cemetery where hundreds of family members are buried in Chicopee. The mausoleum is constructed of “Tiffany granite”, from a granite quarry in Cohasset that Tiffany Studios purchased in 1914. The entrance to the mausoleum is through a Romanesque portico complete with round arches, stocky columns, and Favrile glass mosaics on the sides. Two marble benches flank a specially designed Tiffany bronze door. Inside, it is said that there are 12 catacombs of richly veined white marble under a Favrile glass mosaic ceiling.