GameFowlBreeders.info

    As I have been called on several times to write the history of my Chappell Doms, I will endeavor to tell you all I know about them. In 1855 my honored old father J.W. Chappell (1st) got them from W.R. Smith of Lawrence, S.C. near Cross Hill S.C. W.R. Smith was an old bachelor and very rich; also a true lover of a game cock. This W.R. Smith went to England to a horse race and cocking main. There he saw those Doms fight and was so impressed with their fighting and true gameness he paid a fancy price for one cock and one hen. He brought them home with him and found they were exceedingly fast and dead game. J.W. Chappell, my father, bought every Dom chicken W.R. Smith had; and Smith never fighting anymore. Two years after my father got these chickens he fought them and almost every one won their fights. Later on J.W. Chappell and his brothers Henry and Jim Chappell fought a fifteen cock main with one Rob Franklin of Columbia, S.C. whipping Franklin every fight in the main. Mr. Franklin saw that they were the best fighters he ever went up against and he insisted on my father fighting a main with one Mr. Liverman, of Augusta, Ga. My father fought the main with Liverman and won for a big amount. I don't recall how much, anyway, they matched eighteen cocks, the Chappells winning every fight also the main. Afterwards, father fought a Mr. Ben Brazzle near Columbia, S.C. and made a clean sweep of the Sandy Hill Boys. The Chappells of South Carolina fought those Doms every year for fifty years in Columbia, S. C. The hardest fighting J.W. Chappell ever did was against Nickerton of North Carolina; Mr. Phil Joiner of Columbia, S.C. made a main with Arlington of N.C. showing eighteen Chappell Dom cocks and Nickerton cocks were the hardest cocks to whip the writer ever saw. Now as to the color of the old pure Chappell Doms. At first they were white almost. They are known all over the South as the Chappell Doms. The old white Doms all have Tassells or Top Knots. As to the Rosecomb cross in them, this came from a Spanish cock that J.W. Chappell got from a Mexican and he called this cock after a Mexican General Santa Ana. This rose comb cock was a dangerous cock winning eleven battles in J.W. Chappells hands. J.W. Chappell bred one of those Arlington cocks over some of his Dom hens and that cross proved to be the best cross that we Chappells ever made. The Arlington cock killed a Chappell Dom lying on his back, Mr. Pom? Floyd of Newberry, S.C. paid $50.00 for this Arlington cock and gave him to me and I bred him over five of my fathers Chappell Dom hens; and some of our Doms have some of that blood in their veins now. J.W. Chappell was the first Chappell that brought those Doms to the front. J.W. Chappell had those Doms before the Civil War between the north and the South. Just before my father went to the war he left his Dom chickens with Mr. Ben Wells, in Lawrence, S.C. Ben Wells was a true lover of a game cock, and kept my fathers Doms in their purity. Mr. Wells was a fine gentleman. In 1891 at Atlanta, Ga. Fought Tennessee a main; eleven matched. Chappell of Alabama furnished Tennessee the cocks to fight in this main. Tennessee whipped Atlanta ten out of eleven fights with J.B. Chappell Doms and crosses. J.W. Chappell, my father, died about twenty one years ago.