Last Of De Rays

Expedition

Dies in Australia at 91

rE death occurred on September 25, in Lismore, NSW, of Mrs. Maria Capelin, 91, the last survivor of the ill-fated Marquis de Rays South Seas expedition of the-last century.

Mrs. Capelin was a native of northern Italy, where she met and married her first husband, Mr. G. Tome. They were attracted by the glowing colonisation schemes outlined by the French noble man, the Marquis de Rays, who planned to found “a new French empire” on New Ireland. With their three children, Mr. and Mrs. Tome sailed from Barcelona on July 4, 1880, on S.S. “India,” one of the ill-fated ships carrying members of the expedition to the South Seas.

The colonisation attempts on New Ireland ended disastrously and Mr. Tome was one of many who died on the island.

With the remnants of the expedition, Mrs Tome and her children arrived in Sydney in 1881. In 1886 she married Mr.

L. Capelin and later the couple settled at “New Italy,” outside Woodburn on the Richmond River, where the remnants of the de Rays expedition had founded a colony. , , , “New Italy” prospered for a while but the soil and site were by no means ideal and the settlement gradually fell into decay, until to-day only one of the orig inal settlers remain.

Mr. Capelin died in 1915 and Mrs.

Capelin later lived in Lismore. She is survived by three daughters and four sons. 60 grandchildren, 83 great-grand children, and 12 great-great-grand children. Eighteen of her male descend ants served in World War 11.