In a previous blog I mentioned that I had been corresponding with Ben Ames, a descendant of Jacob Tapscott, my great great uncle, and Ben's great great grandfather.
"Jake" Tapscott lived for a while in or near Hutsonville, Crawford County Illinois, immediately south of Clark County. Another member of the community was Judge Steers, John W. Steers a wealthy farmer and an important man in the community. In 1868, the house of Judge Steers was robbed and evidence pointed to a disreputable group of relatives and hangers-on headed by Old Jim Lane. The "gang" was arrested but several posted bond and were released. The local community called on a group of regulators, some say a "posse," others "vigilantes," to rid the county of these suspected miscreants. On 8 Aug 1868 the "posse" walked into Jim Lane's house, where a gunfight ensued. Jacob Tapscott, a "posse" member, was hit by a bullet (some say fired by Old Jim Lane) and died instantly. He was only 32 (or so). His widow, Mary Lockard moved to nearby Terre Haute to find work to support her four children.
Young Jim Lane was also killed in the gunfight and his father, seriously wounded. The posse panicked realizing that they had no warrant and left with Jake Tapscott's body. For some time afterward Old Jim Lane, who recovered from his wounds, sought justice to avenge his son's death from what he considered to be mob action, but to no avail. Lawyers, worried about their standing in Crawford County, refused to take the case. A couple of years later, a lone horseman rode into Annapolis, a small settlement near the scene of the gunfight, dismounted, and walked among the few buildings. After a short time, Old Jim Lane (for that is who it was) remounted and rode away, never to be seen again. Although the Lane family had likely committed the robbery of Judge Steers, the action taken by the enforcers was unjustified and for Jacob Tapscott, it was disastrous.
Illinois was surprisingly rough back then. Jacob Tapscott had a brother Samuel, a scalawag and an accused murderer. But more on him later.
I find your family history so interesting. Another line in my family (Tapscott side, but maternal) named Greenhaw had a brother or several brothers, really, involved in a lynching. When I first heard that I cringed at the thought that it would be a racial lynching, but what can you do if your ancestors were born and raised in the south during slavery and segregation. Anyway, it wasn't racial. The guy lynch had stolen some cattle. Now, as I hear it, in Texas, you don't mess with a man's woman or his cattle.
ReplyDeleteIt seems I am a descendant of Jacob via his son, Andrew. Andrew is listed as my great-grandmother's father on her birth registration. Her name was Charlotte May "Lottie" McFarland. She seems to be the illegitimate daughter of Andrew and Mary Florence McFarland. Andrew is listed as Andrew Tabscott, but that seems to be the name he used throughout much of his adulthood according to some marriage records, census record, death record, and his obit. Goodness knows there are plenty of other spellings that appear in records, though. My great-grandmother had him listed by the name "Sidny" on the record for her first marriage, but the birth record clearly states Andrew. I'm not sure how much she actually knew of him as she was raised by her mother and step-father, Albert Lane. All of this is new to me as I don't know much of this line. Lottie was the father of my mother's birth father. She was adopted to her adoptive family at 18-months-old. While we did meet her birth family a few years before her birth parents' deaths, we still did not have much info on the family history. I've been digging at it bit by bit for years.
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