Individual Details

Bernard came from Dorchester, England to Dorchester, Massachusetts by 1633. 26 February 1632/3: "This day Christofer Gould married with Rachell Beake, and shortly after, when Aquila Purchas, Bernard Gapen and others went for New England, he was by Mr. White chosen clerk of Trinity Parish, and by the town schooolmaster of Trinity School" [Whiteway 129]. This places Bernard Capen and his family on the unnamed Weymouth ship which arrived in Boston about 24 July 1633 [WJ 1:129]. Other sources claim he came on the ship "Mary and John" with his wife Joan. Joan's father Oliver Purchase followed them to New England.
Bernard was a prominent citizen of Dorchester, serving as a representative six times. He became a Freeman on 25 May 1636 [MBCR 1:371].
Granted four acre lot in Dorchester, 5 August 1633 [DTR 2]; 30 acre Great Lot granted to "Bernard Gapin and his son," 4 January 1635/6 [DTR 14]; "Barnard and John Gapin shall have 2 acres in the marsh next Goodman Grenwayes," 27 June 1636 [DTR 17]; with others, granted "ground adjoining to their home lots," 2 January 1637/8 [DTR 25]; granted two lots each of two acres and a fraction, 18 March 1637/8 [DTR 31]; granted lot #8, 6 acres, in Meadow beyond Naponset [DTR 321]. (Two other small parcels of land granted on 2 January 1637/8 to "Good: Gapin" may be intended for Bernard [DTR 27, 28]).


Ulysses Simpson GRANT (1822–1885) was the 18th President of the United States. He descends from the Massachusetts immigrants Bernard CAPEN and Joan PURCHASE. Bernard Capen and Joan Purchase are also ancestors of President Calvin COOLIDGE.
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Barnard Capen House

The Barnard Capen House, which stood on Washington opposite Melville Avenue, was probably built prior to 1637. In 1909 Harvard professor Kenneth Grant Tremayne Webster rescued the house from demolition and moved it to 427 Hillside Street, Milton. This house is one of three surviving 17th century houses built in Dorchester along with the Blake House, now on Columbia Road and the Pierce House on Oakton Avenue.

In 2006, the property in Milton was sold, and the developer planned to take the house apart to be stored for later sale to another owner who may erect the house elsewhere.


1909 news article re Capen House preservation
Capen House

Source: The Youth’s Companion New England Edition, March 11, 1909

Unless the descendants of Barnard Capen, the original owner and occupant, unite to save, that ancient worthy’s former home in the Dorchester district of Boston, one of the oldest house, if not the oldest, in New England, is likely soon to be destroyed. The Nourse house at Danvers, Massachusetts, which was pictured some two years ago on a Companion cover, is supposed to have been built in 1635. The earlier part of the Dorchester structure, the subject of this week’s cover-page illustrations, dates from “between 1630 and 1638.” Capen died in 1638, and many persons believe his grave, which is still marked and dated, to be “the oldest recorded in the United States, with possibly one exception in James.”

It was for his wisdom and integrity, it is said, that Barnard Capen was selected as one of the colonists who left England and settled Dorchester in 1630. Capen, however, was then sixty-eight years old, and survived the hardships of the new country but eight years. He built his home near what is now Washington Street, opposite Melville Avenue—a house of two rooms so low-studded that in one of them a tall man can scarcely stand upright, with hewn beams and timbers and clapboards, and with an immense fireplace that carried most of the heat up the chimney. This is the western end of the present structure. The eastern end was erected a hundred years later, when, it is recorded, the builders found in the woodwork a number of Indian arrows, suggestions of the difficulties that attended the founding of an early New England home.

With the exception of one year, the house as always remained in the possession of the Capen family. Surrounding it are some eighty-seven thousand square feet of land, and the present owner of the property purposes to clear the land and cut it up in building-lots. Local historical societies which might have a disposition to preserve the house seem to lack the necessary funds; and it is not yet possible to predict the outcome of an attempt now making to rally the Capens to the rescue of their old homestead. Since the house is important in the history of not only Dorchester but New England, it would be greatly to be regretted should this effort fail.

NOTE: The claim that Bernard's house, built circa 1638, was still in existence in 1909 has since been proved incorrect. The house was actually built in 1675 either by Bernard's son Capt. John Capen or by Capt. John's eldest son John

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Birth	1562	Dorchester, Dorset, England, United Kingdom
Marriage	22 Apr 1596	England, United Kingdom - Joan Purchase
Will	9 Oct 1638
Death	8 Nov 1638	Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay, British America
Burial		Dorchester North Burying Ground, Dorchester, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States

Spouse	Joan Purchase (1578 - 1653)
Child	Bernard Capen ( - )
Child	Hannah Capen ( - )
Child	James Capen (1598 - 1628)
Child	Ruth Capen (1600 - )
Child	Susanna Capen (1602 - 1666)
Child	Dorothy Capen (1608 - 1675)
Child	Elizabeth Capen (1610 - 1678)
Child	Captain John Capen (1612 - 1692)
Child	Honor Capen (1616 - )

Notes