Individual Details
Bernard Capen
(1562 - 8 Nov 1638)
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
Events
Families
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
Marriage
According to the fly-leaf of a bible printed in 1615 once owned by a descendant [NEHGR 2:80]:• Barnard Capen maryed Joan ye dafter of Oliuer Purchis, ye yeer of or Lord, 1596, on munday, in whitson week...
Whitsun is the contraction for White Sunday, the 7th day after Easter in the Christian calendar. The following day is called Whit Monday, a name coined to supersede the form "Monday in Whitsun-week." In the year 1596, Apr. 14th was Easter day, thus they married on Monday, Apr. 22, 1596, not May 31, 1596, a Friday, as claimed in the sketch of Bernard in "The Great Migration Begins" series.
Will
In his will of 9 October 1638 BERNARD CAPEN names as one of his trustees 'my brother George Dyer.' Capen's wife was sister of AQUILA PURCHASE, who was closely related to THOMAS PURCHASE, perhaps even brother. On 31 May 1641 Thomas Purchase makes a letter of attorney to George Dyer of Dorchester, planter, and three others to act for him in an action of trespass [Lechford 401-03]."In his will, dated 9 October 1638 and probated 19 November 1652, "Barnard Capen" bequeathed to his son John five acres out of his great lot, the residue to his wife during her life, "and when it shall appear her days draw to an end, that she with the rest of my friends whom I put in trust, to divide these lands and goods to my children equally," naming trustees "Mr. Minit the elder, my brother George Dyer & Will[ia]m Sumner" [SPR 1:84]. Given the terms of the document, probate of the will was presumably delayed until the widow's last illness, as she died just four months later
Death
Bernard's gravestone inscription is thought to be the earliest in New England.Burial
Inscription:Here
lies the bodies of
Mr Barnard Capen
& Mrs Joan Capen his
wife; He died Nov 8,
1638 Aged 76 years
& She died March
26, 1653:
Aged 75 years.
Endnotes
1. Prouty, Louise., Emails on Prouty genealogy, re desendants of James Prouty. (
2. BERNARD CAPEN, Suzanne Storck Leonard online [http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pointe/6265/bios/bernardcapen.htm], accessed 5/2007.
3. Prouty, Louise., Emails on Prouty genealogy, re desendants of James Prouty. (
4. Klumph, Richard Amidon, Genealogy of ancestors of Barbara Bushnell Pelton and her husband Doctor Almon Klumph no. 2 (Kalamazoo, Mich.?: unknown, 1973, 286 pgs.), p. 55.
5. BERNARD CAPEN, Suzanne Storck Leonard online [http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pointe/6265/bios/bernardcapen.htm], accessed 5/2007.
6. Prouty, Louise., Emails on Prouty genealogy, re desendants of James Prouty. (
7. Swift, J. G., The memoirs of Gen. Joseph Gardner Swift, LL.D., U.S.A., first graduate of the United States Military Academy, West Point, Chief Engineer U.S.A. from 1812 to 1818 : 1800-1865 : to which is added a genealogy of the family of Thomas Swift of Dorchester, Mass., 1634 (1890, 370 pgs. : Press of F.S. Blanchard & Co., Worcester, Mass.), p. 4.
8. BERNARD CAPEN, Suzanne Storck Leonard online [http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pointe/6265/bios/bernardcapen.htm], accessed 5/2007.