Reese Family Revolutionary War Ancestor Receives Recognition

Bridgeport resident Frank Reese has been researching his family’s genealogy for many years.  Recently, Reese was able to gain an important recognition for his great, great, great, great grandfather, Jesse Sip Caples, Sr., a Revolutionary War veteran who was buried in an unmarked grave in the Washington Street Cemetery in Middletown.  Through research, Reese was able to determine when Caples had served in the war, which ship he was on, and even that he had been a prisoner for part of that time.  Reese spearheaded the effort to obtain and finally install the headstone his veteran ancestor so richly deserves.  See segment on Jesse Sip Caples’ headstone from NBC-CTFrank D. Reese, son of Francis A. Reese, is a Bridgeport resident.  His grandparents, John and Mary Reese, lived on Whiting Street in the city’s South End neighborhood.  John was a captain of a Bridgeport harbor barge.  Frank Reese’s family has roots that go back several centuries in Connecticut and include extensive ties to the state’s African American and Native American populations, the Mason family, and others.  His Gonsalves ancestors emigrated from Cape Verde, and some ancestors fought in the American Revolution.  Much of the extended family was traditionally based in Central and Eastern Connecticut (Middletown and East Haddam.)  The Caples family was partially a part of the Wangunk Indians, a part of the Algonquins.

Guide to the Papers of the Reese Family at the Bridgeport History Center