Horace Capron
Horace Capron was an American businessman and agriculturalist, a founder of Laurel, Maryland, a Union officer in the American Civil War, the United States Commissioner of Agriculture under U.S. Presidents Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant, and an advisor to Japans Hokkaid Development Commission. His collection of Japanese art and artifacts was sold to the Smithsonian Institution after his death.
Horace Capron was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts, the son of Seth Capron and his wife Eunice Mann Capron. His sister was Louisa Thiers , who in 1925 became the first verified person to reach age 111. His father, a doctor of medicine, opened woollen mills in New York State including Whitesboro, and from this experience Horace went on to supervise several cotton mills including Savage Mill in Savage, Maryland. He was also an officer in the Maryland Militia in the 1830s. In November 1834, Capron and others gathered suspects and potential witnesses of two recent Laurel railroad murders and brought them to Merrills tavern. Some 300 railroad workers were questioned at the Baltimore county jail.
Source: Wikipedia