| Joseph �Capnerhurst� came from England just after the smoke of the Revolution had blown away, and bought the Mine Farm, formerly Case�s, and married Christiana Runyon. Austin Gray Runyon was the first person buried in the Presbyterian graveyard in Flemington. Col. Hugh Runyon, great-grandfather of Hugh Capner, Esq., was an officer in the Revolutionary army. He was a very bold and fearless man, and full of energy and action amid scenes of danger. He settled at Quakertown. The name, �Capnerhurst,� was abbreviated to Capner, shortly after Joseph came to this country. Joseph Capner had a passion for blooded stock, principally for sheep. He was the second that kept Bakewell sheep in this country. The first were smuggled here by a man named Beans. Joseph Capner�s Bakewells were considered the finest sheep in the Union, and were sold to woolgrowers in almost every state. When Hugh Capner was a very small boy�about seven years old�his father would send him out with a little bag of oats to feed the sheep, that he might acquire a fondness for them. It was through this early training that Mr. Hugh Capner became celebrated as an importer of the best Bakewells, and as having one of the finest flocks in America. Mr. Capner has also earned an enviable reputation for blooded cattle. Thomas Capner, a brother of Joseph, and John Capner�s father, came from England when a boy. John Hall, the great-uncle of Hugh and John, came here before the Revolution, to look at the country, and returned. He sympathized with the Americans, but had landed property in England, and Capt. Cottman, wishing to come over and help fight our battles, left his wife in Mr. Hall�s family and embarked for America. He was a gallant soldier and fought bravely all through the war. After the war, Mr. Hall returned to America, bringing with him the Capner family and Captain Cottman�s wife. Joseph settled at Flemington, as already related, and Thomas went to a saw-mill at the mouth of the Wissahickon, in Pennsylvania. Here he became partner of Mahlon Hill, a wealthy Quaker of Philadelphia. He afterwards moved to Trenton. When his brother Joseph died, Thomas Capner came to Flemington and purchased his farm and kept up the reputation of the family for raising and importing Bakewell sheep. When Hugh became of age he bought the farm. John Capner has devoted a good deal of attention to Bakewells, and owns some of the finest sheep in the country. From pp. 67-8 of John Lequear�s �Traditions of Hunterdon,� originally published 1869-70. Additional references to Capners in Lequear are: p. 61 �Mr. John Capner has a deed in which several old titles are recited. It is the conveyance by which Thomas Lowrey and Esther his wife parted with their Flemington property about the time they removed to the Delaware plantation, now Frenchtown. This deed is dated December 4th, 1785.� p. 62 �Fleming and Thomas Lowrey came from Ireland together. Lowrey was then a boy. The old storehouse, Of Revolutionary fame, built by Samuel Fleming, stood about four feet in front of John Capner�s lawn fence. It was a long, low frame building, the south end extending a few feet south of the north end of Mr. Capner�s dwelling� p. 63 �The house standing a few feet south-west of John Capner�s residence, on his premises, is where Fleming and Lowrey lived when they kept the store.� p. 65 � Hugh Capner, Esq., of this town, says that when he was a young man and rode past Geary�s grave after night, the first question he would be asked on arriving in Flemington, was �Whether he�d seen anything of Geary?� And this became the uniform question put to all those who traveled that way after night. Even the storehouse had its terrors. A young lady who once lived here has told us that when she was a school-girl�not many years ago�the children looked upon it with a kind of superstitious dread, as they passed by to school�as though the King�s seal had some kind of witchery in it, to cast a spell over all coming generations. This building was torn down by John Capner a few years ago, and the timbers were then so sound and hard that the carpenters made chisel handles form them.� (For more on Geary, see my page on my ancestor Capt. John Schenck.) p. 157 (relating to voluntary emancipation of slaves.) �December 10th, 1799, Joseph Capner liberated Hannah.� |
| Joseph Capner and His Descendants |