later worked as building superintendent at a United States Post Office and at the United States Boston Custom House. Political and civil rights career Early involvement Lewis Hayden helped bring Chappelle into the Republican Party and started him out giving him the task to register people to vote. Chappelle was quite successful at it, and was known for his neat appearance as he also learned the barber's trade when in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Newspapers described Chappelle as having a brisk walk and as being well spoken. Boston's Sunday Herald in 1886 that Chappelle was thought of as an "Adonis" by the African-American community. Massachusetts General Court In the early 1880s, he was nominated as a Republican candidate for the state legislature from Boston's Ninth Ward, including the Beacon Hill area, and was elected for four terms from 1883 to 1886. He became one of the early prominent African-American legislators. The Ninth Ward was also called the Ninth Suffolk district and was composed of 2,800 voters in 1886. The Boston Globe described the Ward as extremely diverse both ethnically and economically: "There is not another ward in the whole town that so completely embraces all the grades of society. On the voting lists of one precinct are few voting names that do not bear the Celtic stamp, while another precinct is composed entirely of colored men. Then there is the precinct where the voters are mostly of the middle walk, where still in another the most pretentious people of Boston are still in control." Upon his election, Republican legislators tried to prevent Chappelle from having an actual chair in the General Court by pinning the name of a white Republican on his chair, forcing Chappelle to find another "out-of the way" chair to sit in. Though this incident was not without precedent, it was considered a mark of hypocrisy by the otherwise pro-black Republican Party. The next day, the Republican caucus issued a statement denouncing the story and claiming it was the prerogative of Chappelle's defeated opponent to bequeath his chair to whom he chose. In the House, Chappelle served on committees for the "Federal relations and engrossed bill," and "Public Land and State House." In 1883, Chappelle introduced a bill to stop exploitative chain gangs in the South. Chappelle staunchly supported expanding the federal Civil Rights Act of 1866 to prohibit race discrimination in public settings, stating "It is on the