For the past several years, I have been under the impression that Francis Capshaw, b. abt. 1659, was the first Capshaw
in America. That still may well be true, but recently, William Joseph (Joe) Capshaw of Jacksonville, FL, while searching the "net" for a score to a ball game came across a link to a song called Copshawholm Fair. From that bit of information, he found a place called Copshaw Holm (sometimes written Copshaw Holme and Copshawholme) in the borders area of Scotland. From there, we have been digging into everything we can find regarding Copshaw/Capshaw and any connection to Scotland.
While the monarchs of England and Scotland ruled the comparatively secure hearts of their kingdoms, the narrow hill land between was dominated by the lance and the sword. The tribal leaders from their towers, the broken men, and outlaws of the mosses, the ordinary peasants of the valleys, in their own phrase, 'shook loose the Border'. They continued to shake it as long as it was political reality, practicing systematic robbery and destruction on each other. History has christened them the Border Reivers.
In the story of Britain, the Border Reiver is a unique figure. He was not part of a separate minority group in his area; he came from every social class. He was an agricultural laborer, or a small-holder, or a gentleman farmer, or even a peer of the realm, a professional cattle rustler, a fighting man and a guerrilla soldier of great resource to whom the arts of theft, raid, tracking, and ambush were second nature. He was also a gangster organized on highly professional lines, who had perfected the protection racket three centuries before Chicago was built. He gave blackmail to the English language."
Throughout the Reiving years, travel was dangerous business. Strangers met with suspicion, fear and hostility. The traveller had to move cautiously by day, always sought shelter before nightfall and rarely found a welcome.
The Border Lands, territorial patch of the Border Reiver, straddle the once disputed boundary and Debatable Land between "two of the most energetic, aggressive, talented and all together formidable nations in history", England and Scotland. They stretch in one broad sweep from the Solway Firth in the west to the Northumbrian and Berwickshire coast in the east and comprise the Cheviot Hills and parts of the Southern Uplands and the Pennines. To the west, they are the Solway Coast and the Eden Valley, to the east, the Merse. They are riven by the waters of the Nith, the Annan, the Esk, the Teviot, the Tweed, and by Redesdale, Coquetdale, Tynedale and, of course Liddesdale, scene of so many of the bloodiest events of the Reiving years.
The Border lands are home to the descendants of the notorious Reivers and their marauding families: the Armstrongs, the Grahams, the Irvines, the Kerrs, the Scotts, the Elliots, the Maxwells, the Johnstones, the Musgraves, the Bells, the Fosters, the Charltons, the Nixons and the Robsons to name just some of the more feuding elements of Border society in the 16th century. The area is liberally dotted with castles, stately homes, the ruins of historic abbeys, fortified farmhouses (bastles), the scattered remains of pele towers and the atmospheric remnants of abandoned hamlets or howfs, hidden up remote side valleys. The many towns and settlements that were raided, the fortified churches and the defensive walls and dykes dating back to Elizabeth I and her forbears. The fields of battle and the Reiver graveyards all bear testament to the turbulent history that marked these lands and those times. The brutal activities of the warring families and the indiscriminate plundering and merciless cruelty that drove fear deep into the very souls of ordinary Border folk.
Other vestiges of that virtually ungovernable region, of that lawless state that was allowed to flourish, more or less unchecked, for the best part of 350 years, reside within the ancient seats of power, the Warden families such as the Buccleuchs, Dacres, Humes and Scropes, the frontier garrisons, the places of truce. And on the Reiver side, there are the secret places of sanctuary, the lairs they fled to in the heat of pursuit, the 'hot trod'; mosses and wastes where pursuing posses could find themselves at a distinct disadvantage; hidden valleys where one thousand head of cattle could be spirited away.
Newcastleton was founded in 1793 by the third Duke of Buccleuch as a handloom-weaving village near the remains of Copshaw Tower. It is still known to the native inhabitants as Copshaw, Copshawholme or the Holme, which apparently means literally, 'the wood by the summit'. It is unknown, at this point as to when CopshawHolme was founded, but we have found that John of Copshaw lived in a "tower house". Since it had a tower, presumably for defense, one could assume, and rightfully so I think, that John had a reason to defend himself. Based on the historical data from above, I think old John of Copshaw was tight with the ruling party of the time, the Calverts. When a new king decided to tighten the reins on all those reivers, one line of thought was "three strikes and you're out"! In other words, if one continued to rape, rob, loot and pillage, and were caught, the penalty was increased, and the third time, you were hung! No trial, no jury, no appeal--just hung. In early MD John Capshaw (also written Copshaw) received a land grant of 150 acres for transporting himself, his wife and his son to America. Who is John Capshaw? Even though there have been claims, by paid researchers, of finding Capshaws in England as early as 1200 or so, I have never seen any documented proof. One lady sent me a copy of the "Capshaw Crest". She had apparently sent her $39.95, and gotten some generic information stating that one Capshaw was a colonel in the British Army, another a doctor, another a large land owner, etc. Many researchers, more learned than I, have hunted, dug, searched, and have been unable to come up with a surname Capshaw, Copshaw, or anything close. I have worn out three modems searching those available records from the British Isles, and have yet to come close to anything that resembles Capshaw. Did John of Copshaw make his way to America in the mid 1600s, to keep from being hung, or otherwise persecuted by the new ruling party of the time? Needing a new name to keep from being associated with the border reivers of Scotland, and thereby substantially lowering his social status, did he assume Copshaw or Capshaw as his surname? I don't know, and we may never know, but hopefully I can instigate just enough to get some folks involved, and maybe by digging a bit deeper, we will someday find out.
This is a photo of "a" tower house, but not THE tower house of John of Copshaw.
While preparing this page, I got an e-mail from Evelyn Noble, which contained the same information, plus the paragraph directly below:
"The old name, Copshawholm, has been given to a large house built in South Bend, Indiana, by James Oliver, inventor of the Oliver plough, who was born at Whitehaugh, near Newcastleton"
A copy of a land deed from early Maryland shows John Copshaw having received 150 acres of land for transporting himself, his wife and son to the "new world". In the document, Capshaw is spelled with both an A and an O. Later legal papers spell the name only with an A.
