Early Life
Horace Capron was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts, the son of Seth Capron and his wife Eunice Mann Capron. His sister was Louisa Thiers, who became the first person to celebrate a 111th birthday in 1925. 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 1834, Horace married Louisa Victoria Snowden, whose late father Nicholas had owned Montpelier Mansion. This marriage brought lands and property. They had six children before Louisa died in 1849: Nicholas Snowden Capron, who died in infancy; Adeline Capron, who died at age 17 in Illinois; Horace Capron, Jr., who received the Medal of Honor after being killed in the Civil War; Albert Snowden Capron; Elizabeth Capron Mayo; and Osmond Tiffany Capron.
Capron was involved in the mechanization of cotton mills beginning in 1835, having worked in mills from boyhood in Massachusetts and New York. In 1836 he was a major force in forming the Patuxent Manufacturing Company, a cotton mill on the Patuxent River, and with this effort he and associates started what became the town of Laurel Factory, later Laurel, Maryland. In 1851 the mill failed, and Capron declared bankruptcy. Soon after, he obtained an appointment from the President to assist in removal and resettlement of Native Americans from Texas following the Mexican-American War. He spent several months in Texas, and then moved to a farm near Hebron, Illinois where his mother Eunice and sister Louisa Thiers had settled and were taking care of his children. Here, he built an imposing mansion. In Illinois, he was remarried to Margaret Baker and took up farming in earnest, experimenting with farming improvements, writing articles, participating in events and receiving awards for his work.
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