Frank Sumner Capen

Frank Sumner Capen was an American educator who from 1888 to 1899 was the second principal of the New Paltz Normal School. A SUNY New Paltz campus residence hall is named in his honor.

While at the New Paltz Normal School, Frank Capen became an honorary member of Alpha Pi Nu, the first fraternity at New Paltz which later became the Delphic Fraternity.

Frank S. Capen, a descendant of the Capen Family who founded Dorchester, Massachusetts, was born in York, N.Y. in 1843 to parents John F. Capen and Sarah Sumner Merrill. Frank married Louise M. Peck in 1874 and they had five children.

Capen was educated at the Brockport Collegiate Institute, received an A.B. in 1868 and an A.M. in 1871 from the University of Rochester (where he was a member of the Delphic Society), and earned a PhD from Colgate University in 1887.

Capen was one of the original 1869 Cortland Normal School faculty members and later served as its vice principal. He was a professor of physics for two years at Colby University where he remained until 1886 when he became the principal of Norwich High School.

Capen was asked to resign from his position at New Paltz in 1899 due to alleged misconduct. His next professional move in Buffalo, New York was unsuccessful which led him to be despondent and he died from suicide in 1900.