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" KING" CAPRON In politics he was always a Reformer; but his retiring disposition. kept him from taking that precedence which his influence could have secured, and which his experience would have so well qualified him for. He was consistent and thorough in his party attach- ments, and never deserted the ranks in which he had chosen to serve, or deviated from a consistent adherence to what he deemed the better party of his day. Capron was always verve much interested in American politics. He was a great admirer of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln. He hated slavery and racial intolerance. In i869, he wrote: ",I wish that he [President Grant] would hang all the Klu Klux and make white southerners behave as well as Negroes o do." Perhaps Capron's political beliefs affected his attitude towards organized religion. Most of the influential American clergy, par- ticularly in the eastern states, had allied themselves with the wealthy classes against the principles of Jefferson, and thus thousands of young Americans like Capron had adopted an attitude of anti- clericalism. In 1i83i1, the Reverend William Proudfoot noted Cap- ron's attitude in his diary: Slept at Mr. Capron's -a keen, active man. He is not a professor, but is in the process of becoming one. He told me that within the last twelve months he was a man of the world, that God had smitten his family and made him think, and that he wished above all things to be a Christian. However, although "God had smitten his family" (a reference to the death of an infant son, William), Capron never became a pro- Ifessed Christian, nor a member of a religious congregation. He tried, nevertheless, to obey what he considered to be the fundamental precepts of the Christian religion. And he encouraged others to do likewise. In a letter to one of his brothers, he advised him "to read the scriptures and regulate your life and conduct to the Golden Rule." It would seem that he usually practised what he preached. Accord- ing to his daughter Jane. a standing order in the Capron household was "Never turn anybody away hungry". And a number of tra- ditional stories attest to his extraordinary charity and hospitality. About 1832, for instance (according to "History of Brant County"), when Elias Conklin was returning from Buffalo with some heavy machinery for one of the new mills, he brought with him: . . .three five-gallon kegs of oysters, which were then a rare luxury. Two, he parted with at Brantford; and the third was bought by Hiram Capron, who invited every man, woman and child in the village to an oyster supper. Nearly everyone attended, as was the custom in those early days, and such a jolly time was spent as few can in this prim and fashionable age. And another passage from the same history states: In manhood as in old age he is remembered by all as keen, shrewd, Ij~ ~ generous under a mask of reserve . . . He was ever ready to help others; in more than one instance when a settler came to pay him the instalment of purchase money due on his farm, Mr. Capron told him to keep the money and invest it in farm tools or stock. E33