Great-great-grandson of Mount Pulaski co-founder will visit Monday

[September 26, 2009]  MOUNT PULASKI -- Roger Capps, who is a retired educator from Portland, Ore., and great-great-grandson of Mount Pulaski's co-founder, Jabez Capps, will be guest speaker at the Mount Pulaski Historical Society meeting on Monday at 7 p.m. in the museum at Mount Pulaski. The public is invited.

The meeting may be moved two doors down to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall if there is a large crowd.

Refreshments will be served.

Capps reports that he has an original invitation to Abraham Lincoln's funeral. He said it was "probably given to my grandfather's father (Jabez's son) -- Ebenezer."

Roger, along with his two remaining brothers, has done extensive, ongoing research on Jabez and his large London family.

Jabez Capps sailed to America in 1817. Other siblings and his mother eventually moved to the United States and settled in and around Springfield, Ill.

However, a younger sibling, brother Thomas, remained in London and took care of the family business, an import cloth and tailor business. He was listed as a "wholesale clothier master" with 14 employees in the Westminster section of London.

Upon the death of Thomas Capps at age 90, the following article appeared in the New York Times (copy as provided):

'AMERICANS HEIRS TO MILIONS'
Capps Family of Illinois Inherit a Rich Estate in England

"Springfield, Illinois, Oct. 26, 1897. The Capps family, residing in Illiopolis, Springfield, Riverton, Vandalia, and Mt. Pulaski, in this state, have just come into an inheritance of between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 through the death of a brother named Thomas Capps, in London, England, on Sept. 19. Among the beneficiaries of Thomas Capps are Charles Capps and J.M. Capps of this city and A.S. Capps of Riverton. The deceased was formerly in the wholesale cloth trade, having retired to a country seat in 1875. He was ninety years old at the time of his death."

Jabez Capps co-founded Mount Pulaski in 1836.

[Text from file received from Phil Bertoni]