Joseph Harris Chappell

Joseph Harris Chappell (October 1849 – April 6, 1906) was an American educator, pedagogue, curriculum designer, author, and college president. He served as the first president of Georgia Normal and Industrial College (now Georgia College & State University) in Milledgeville, Georgia, from 1891 to 1905.

Early life Joseph Harris Chappell was born in October 1849 in Macon, Georgia, to parents Absalom Harris Chappell and Loretta Lamar Chappell.

He had five siblings. His brother Lucius Henry Chappell (1853–1928) served two terms as mayor of Columbus, Georgia. Another brother, Thomas Jefferson Chappell (1851–1910), was a lawyer, judge, and two term member of the Georgia House of Representatives. Chappell was primarily raised in the city, with two years in childhood spent on his father's cotton plantation After the 1885 death of president James G. Ryals Jr., Chappell served for one year in the role of president.

Chappell died on April 6, 1906, in Columbus, Georgia after a long illness. Chappell is included as part of the "Vanishing Georgia" collection at the Georgia Archives, with a portrait of him taken in 1903, and a photograph with his three brothers from .

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