Capps, Jabez

Born: 1796-09-09 London, United Kingdom

Died: 1896-04-01 Mount Pulaski, Illinois

Flourished: Mount Pulaski, Illinois

Jabez Capps was a schoolteacher, shoemaker, and merchant. He moved from his native London to the United States when he was twenty-one. He traveled to several places in the east before settling in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he remained for two years working in various professions. After short stints in Louisville, Kentucky, and St. Louis, Missouri, Capps established a residence in what would become Springfield, Illinois, in 1820. At various times he worked as a schoolteacher, shoemaker, and merchant. In December 1828, he married Prudy Ann Stafford, with whom he had four children. Prudy Capps died in 1836, and in September 1836, Jabez Capps married Elizabeth Baker, with whom he had ten more children. That same year, Capps joined with several others in founding Mount Pulaski and opened a general store. In 1850, he was operating his mercantile establishment in Mount Pulaski and owned real property valued at $10,000. In 1858, he retired from his store and pursued horticulture with his son Charles. In 1860, Capps owned real property valued at $35,000 and had a personal estate of $35,000.

History of Logan County, Illinois (Chicago: Donnelley, Loyd, 1878), 407-8; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Sangamon County, 7 December 1828, 29 September 1836, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Mount Pulaski, Logan County, IL, 178; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Mount Pulaski, Logan County, IL, 34; The Evening Bulletin (Decatur, IL), 2 April 1896, 1:3; Gravestone, Mount Pulaski Cemetery, Mount Pulaski, IL.