Saturday, October 31, 2015

Wesley's War

Tapscotts played minor roles in the Civil War. Among those with Tapscott surnames, more fought for the Confederacy than for the Union, and among the Wabash Valley Tapscotts, only Wesley “Tabscott” (see posts of 7 Jun 2015, 6 Aug 2015), a private in the Union Army, saw active service. Enlisting for two terms with Indiana regiments, Wesley served in northern Alabama, where he could have battled his relatives. The Alabama Tapscotts (post 16 Jun 2015), were, of course, Confederates.

Ruins of Nashville & Chattanooga RR bridge and construction of  temporary
pontoon bridge, 1864 (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Online Catalog).
Wesley first joined the 133rd Indiana Infantry, Co. E, mustering in at Terre Haute on 17 May 1864. His regiment was sent to Bridgeport, Alabama, where they were charged with guarding the railroad bridge across the Tennessee River. After 100 days’ service, the regiment mustered out 5 Sep 1864.

The following year Wesley joined the 149th Indiana Infantry, Co. H, mustering in 2 Mar 1865, again in Terre Haute. The regiment was sent to Decatur, Alabama, a strategic site at the junction of two railroads. Just a month later, on 9 Apr 1865, Lee surrendered at Appomattox, signaling the beginning of the end of the War. While serving in Decatur in June 1865, Wesley was taken ill and was hospitalized at Huntsville, Alabama, where he was discharged 11 Jun 1865. He was among the lucky ones. Forty-three soldiers of the 149th died of disease. (Another twenty-seven deserted).

During our recent steamboat trip, Mary Frances and I traveled on the Tennessee River, docking at Decatur and passing by Bridgeport.

All genealogical data reported in these posts are from primary and/or reputable secondary sources, or reliable transcriptions thereof, and never from unsourced online trees. Contact the author to request sources, which have been omitted here to improve readability. Permission is granted to use any posted material for any purpose as long as the source is cited: Robert E. Tapscott, title of posting, Tapscott Family History, Blogspot.com, date of posting.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Judge Constable

Judge Charles H. Constable (John Thomas Richards,
Abraham Lincoln, the Lawyer-Statesman,
Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1916).
Over a decade prior to the Civil War, Illinois had become a free state with the adoption of the Constitution of 1848. The final decision was made only after a prolonged struggle even though there had been few slaves in the state — only 331 when Henry arrived in 1840.

Third Clark County Courthouse, built. 1839. torn down in
1887,  site of the 1863 military arrest of Judge Charles H.

Constable (Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois
 and History of Clark County
, 1907).
Although a free state, Illinois loyalties were split by the War. In March 1861, in Marshall, Illinois, several deserters being safeguarded by a group of Clark County Copperheads opposing the War, were arrested by an Indiana army detail. A local judge, Charles H. Constable, freed the fugitives and ordered the arrest of two Union sergeants on kidnapping charges. Under the command of Col. Henry B. Carrington, 250 soldiers arrived by special train from Indianapolis, surrounded the Marshall courthouse, freed the two sergeants, and arrested Judge Constable.

Constable was tried in federal court, but the charges were dropped. Upon returning to Marshall, he and his family suffered threats and harassment. At one point a group of Union Soldiers forced him to take an oath of allegiance. Possibly as a result of the public humiliation, he became addicted to morphine and on 9 Oct 1865 died of an overdose (believed by some to be a suicide).

Judge Constable is buried in the Marshall Cemetery with his wife, Martha, who died just a few months after her husband.

All genealogical data reported in these posts are from primary and/or reputable secondary sources, or reliable transcriptions thereof, and never from unsourced online trees. Contact the author to request sources, which have been omitted here to improve readability.

A Civil War Venture

American Queen (2015).
On the 12th day of April 1861, at exactly 4:30 in the morning, a mortar shell arched over the harbor of Charleston, South Caroline, exploding above an island fortification, Fort Sumter, and changing America forever. The result of the shelling was variously known as “The War of the Rebellion,” “The War of Northern Aggression,” “Mr. Lincoln’s War,” “The Brothers’ War.”


Mary Frances and I just returned from a Civil War-focused trip, traveling from Nashville to Chattanooga on the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers via the American Queen, a steam-driven paddlewheel. We saw battlefield sites, heard Civil War lectures, and on board the boat “met” Abe Lincoln and Mark Twain (or, at least, their impersonators). The principal purpose of the journey was, admittedly, fun, but our voyage allowed a plunge into Civil War history to better understand the impacts on and the politics of Wabash Valley inhabitants during this desperate period. These will be the focus of some upcoming posts.

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

The Rest of the Story


For some time we have been stuck in the mire of the Sweets and Lowrys. Today, we finally get back to the Tapscotts—sort of.

On 1 Mar 1884, at the Clark County, Illinois, office of Justice of the Peace John G. Towell, Cora Isabelle Tapscott (often called “Bell”) married Richard Morgan Sweet (who usually went by just “Morgan”). Morgan was a grandson of Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Maddox) Sweet. His father was Austin Sweet, a brother of Eliza Ann (Sweet) Lowry, about whom we have heard so much. Cora was a granddaughter of Henry and Susan Bass Tapscott.

In 1880, there were only sixteen Sweets in all of Clark County, most living near Martinsville, a few miles west of the Tapscott farms in Anderson township. The union of Richard and Cora eventually added thirteen descendants to this number—Ithamar, William, Robert, Charles, Emma, Murl, Faris, Ruth, Ruby, Leslie, Eugene, Harold, and Nila. My uncle Clarence Benson Tapscott claimed that there was a fourteenth Sweet, Thomas, but if so Thomas must have died as an infant. No documentation of his existence has been found.

With the many children in the family of Morgan and Bell Sweet and the rather common surname, tracing them down for a book on the Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley has been an onerous task.  One person who was particularly difficult to track was Leslie Morgan Sweet.

Leslie was born to Cora and Richard on 14 Oct 1903. Sometime in the early 1920s, after working on the family farm, he moved to Michigan City, Indiana, and then on to Detroit. There Leslie worked as grinder in an automobile factory, married Agnes May Ford (the ceremony actually occurred across the state line in Ohio), and was divorced in 1952. He next appeared in the 21 July 1957 edition of The Marshall Herald, in which it was reported that the Sweet clan had been called together by the “by the sudden death of their brother and uncle, Leslie Sweet, of Effingham, Ill.” Leslie was buried near Martinsville in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, the resting place of a multitude of Sweets.

Leslie’s life appeared nicely wrapped up until I saw a 24 Jul 1959 Marshall Herald article about a reunion of “Morgan and Bell Tapscott Sweet” descendants held in Covington, Indiana. Among those attending was “Mrs. Leslie Sweet of Effingham, Ill.” Unless Leslie’s ex-wife decided to attend a reunion of her in-laws, which seemed unlikely, Leslie’s life was not “wrapped up.” Moreover, the earlier report that he had died suddenly was a bother. Thus when Mary Frances and I headed for Illinois to do family history research this summer, we set aside a day in Effingham in attempt to put together the rest of Leslie’s tale. (And to eat at an outstanding Effingham restaurant, the Firefly Grill, just down the street from our hotel.) The records collected from the courthouse and the Helen Matthes library have been reviewed, and with the provision of some detailed information by Michael L. Hébert, we can complete the story of Leslie's life.

Leslie Sweet death certificate.
Around 1950, Leslie moved from Detroit to Effingham, where he apparently met Cora Katherine Campbell, to whom he was wedded sometime between 1952, when his first marriage was dissolved, and 1954, when Cora was designated “Cora Sweet” in an obituary for her father. Raised by John and Susan (Hilton) Campbell in the town of Montrose in Effingham County, Cora was first married to Oakley Earl (“Jack”) Hargrave on 15 May 1926. The marriage produced one child, but ended in an acrimonious divorce on 4 Nov 1935, with Jack Hargrave later arrested for nonpayment of alimony.

Cora’s marriage to Leslie Sweet was short. On 9 Jun 1957, at 8:15 in the evening, Leslie stepped in front of a car while crossing a busy street in the city of Effingham and was struck by a driver who may have been blinded by oncoming traffic. He died instantly. Leslie left no descendants.  Less than a year earlier, on 3 Aug 1956, Leslie had been involved in an automobile accident near Mattoon in which he hit the rear end of an automobile. The accident injured five people with one dying.

Two years later, Cora married Gerald E. Lockart, a widowed funeral home owner and operator from Shelby County, Illinois. Dying on 24 Aug 1983, Cora is interred in Montrose Cemetery in Effingham County.

From the 1950s through the 1990s, ABC radio broadcaster Paul Harvey would present little-known or forgotten facts on events and people, concluding his broadcast with the phrase "And now you know the rest of the story." Here, for Leslie Sweet, was the “Rest of the Story.”

All genealogical data reported in these posts are from primary and/or reputable secondary sources, or reliable transcriptions thereof, and never from unsourced online trees. Contact the author to request sources, which have been omitted here to improve readability.

Sunday, October 4, 2015

DNA, Jamaica, and Bollings

Since posting (21 Oct 2014) the observation of a close DNA match between me and a Jamaican Ford descendant (genetic distance of 2 for a 67-marker yDNA STR test), I have observed an even closer match (genetic distance of 1 for 67 markers) between that Ford descendant and a Tapscott who has never left England. In both cases the DNA difference lies in marker CDYb. The Jamaican Ford descendant shows 37-37 for CDY; the Tapscott living in England shows 37-38 for CDY; I show 37-39 for CDY. Since CDY is a fast-mutating marker, the fact that we differ only in this one marker strengthens the probability that the Fords of St. Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica, and the Tapscotts of England and the U.S., have a common ancestor, quite possibly linked to William Tapscott, the Rebel, who was transported from England to Jamaica around 1686.

What is interesting is that the Jamaican Ford descendant also shows close matches (distances of 1 for 67 markers) with three people descended from ancestors bearing the name Bolding or Bowling (members of Group 5 Bollings, http://www.bolling.net/). Two of these matches are known to show a difference only in the CDY marker (37-38 for both a Bolding descendant and a Bowling descendant compared with 37-37 for the Ford descendant). As you all know, we have found Bolling matches for Tapscotts in the Tapscott surname study. And, more recently, autosomal DNA results also indicate a match between Group 5 Bolling/Bowling/Bollin/Bolding descendants and Tapscott descendants.

It is becoming increasingly likely that the Bolling Group 5 family of Virginia, USA, the Tapscotts of Virginia and England, and the Fords of St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, have a common ancestor through an all-male line, but I would like to confirm this with a paper study. At this point, I am leaning toward a Tapscott progenitor in England with William Tapscott the Rebel starting the Jamaican Fords and someone in early Virginia or possibly England starting the Bollings.

I have proposed a proof of the connection of the Tapscotts and the Jamaican Fords as a problem for the televised Genealogy Roadshow (http://genealogyroadshow.org/casting-page/); however, I suspect that this will not be chosen since (1) it involves records outside the U.S. (which may increase the amount of time that the Roadshow wishes to spend on a project) and (2) I am not a confirmed member of the Ford family of Jamaica and thus cannot give the question the personal feeling that the Roadshow likes. Others (a Jamaican Ford?) may want to propose this or another Tapscott genealogy question to the Roadshow. I would be glad to help.