Simcoe,
March 20.--Clarence Rapelje, for 60 years clerk of the surrogate court
and of the Supreme Court for the County of Norfolk, died at his home
here last evening in his 86th year after a week's illness from heart
trouble.
His record of 60
years in office, which closed with his resignation in December, 1926, is
probably unequalled in all Canada.
His three sisters
predeceased him and he himself never married.
He
was a son of Henry Rapelje, who was made deputy sheriff to his father,
Col. Abraham Rapelje, when Norfolk was cut off from the London
District.
His
grandfather, Abraham Rapelje, was the pioneer of the family in this
country. Born in 1776, he resided near Port Dover during the war of 1812
in which he raised a company here, which he led with distinction at the
Battle of Lundy's Lane. He settled after the war, on the old
homestead, near Vittoria.
