UNIV. OF I CHAPTER I BIRTH AND LINEAGE Was born on the 28th day of June, 1847, in the town of Fairmount, County of Hamilton, State of Ohio. My father was of Teutonic origin. I can trace my ancestry in the male line as far back as my great-grandfather. Just after the Revolutionary War two brothers, Ulric Jan and Jan Ulric Kropps, were living in the town of Schodack, in the County of Columbia, in the State of New York; they were tenants of the Patroon Van Rensellaer and followed the honest trade of the blacksmith. They came from their native land to the new world some time during the Revolutionary War. My surmise is that they were members of that mercenary army hired by George III of England to subdue his revolting subjects in the American Colonies, and, finding this land to their liking, made it their home. One of these men, whether Ulric Jan or Jan Ulric, I cannot tell, took to wife a Welsh woman, Ann Griffith by name, and begat sons and daughters. One of these sons, called Jan, or as it is in English, John, moved westward to the town of Parma, in Genesee County, State of New York, where he engaged in farming, being at the same time the minister of a small Baptist Church. In due time John Crapsey (for so now was the name spelled) married a wife—name and lineage unknown—and begat sons and daughters. To the youngest of these sons he gave the name of Jacob Tompkins-Jacob in honour of the great Patriarch, and Tompkins in honour of the then Governor of |