Richard and Cyntha

Born around 1810 or 1811, in Virginia according to him, but possibly in North Carolina, where the family was living at the time, Richard Tapscott was the youngest of William the Preacher and Winifred’s five children. He was barely a toddler when he traveled with his father (and mother?) around 1812 to Green County, Kentucky, living there (for the most part) until after 1837, when he appears in the tax list with 100 acres of land. He may have been out of the county around 1830, when his father and brother Henry appear in the census for Barren County. If so, he had returned by 1831.

Richard had a hard upbringing. William was an impecunious preacher man, who had little to give his children in the way of property or education. All of his sons were illiterate. When the Preacher died around Mar 1837, his estate brought only $63.13 to be divided among five (or six? See “Wesley,” 7 Jun 2015) children.

Richard Tapscott farmed along Brush Creek in Casey County (2013).

Following William’s death, Richard and two of his brothers, George Rice and William Stewart, moved to nearby Casey County. There, Richard farmed 100 acres along Brush Creek, giving him an opportunity to use the only thing he is known to have received from his father — a clevis and chain (harnessing equipment) that he had purchased at the Preacher’s estate sale for 63 cents. And there on 13 Feb 1840 he married Cyntha A. Followell (born 1817 – 1820). By 1853, Richard owned land in both Casey County (65 acres) and adjacent Marion County (65 acres), and by 1855, “Dick” Tapscott had 115 acres in just Marion County. But the following year’s Marion County tax list gives only “Cynthia” Tapscott as the property’s owner. Richard had died, leaving behind four young children, William W., Kasiah, John W., and George W. The oldest, William, was still a teenager; he youngest, George, was probably under six.

In Casey County on 4 Oct 1859 widowed Cyntha married a somewhat younger Christian Weatherman. Born in North Carolina to Cornelius Weatherman and Catharine Runager around 1825, give or take a couple of years, Christian had moved to Kentucky in the 1850s.

Apparently the marriage was short-lived, as were Cyntha and Christian. Neither appears in any document after the 1860 census. Their fate is unknown. No burial site is known, no death record has been found. It does not help that on 5 Jul 1863 Morgan's Raiders burned the Marion County clerk's office destroying its contents.

Our next post takes a look at some of the children.

Richard Tapscott and the Followells

A post of 15 Nov 2015, about William the Preacher’s children (Henry, Winifred, George, William, and Richard), noted that “Little is known of Richard’s descendants, primarily because little family history research has been done for that line.” It also didn’t help that the boys were illiterate (giving rise to name spelling problems and a scarcity of records) and poor (making informative wills unnecessary). Three weeks ago, I received an email from Frank Jarke, a descendent of Richard Tapscott.  Frank, a family historian and the first of Richard’s successors to contact me, filled me in on what he knew of Richard’s descendants. I immediately took another look at Richard and found that I could not stop, even though it pulled me away from my primary interest (the Wabash Valley Tapscotts) and turned me into a temporary recluse (explaining my seeming absence for the last few weeks). Frank’s providing some badly needed starting points has produced some new Tapscott history. Today we take a look at the parentage of Richard’s wife. Additional history will be found in future posts.

Contemporary records show that Richard married “Sintha Followay” in Casey County on 13 Feb 1840. Richard’s wife was actually Cyntha Followell, though neither he nor she would have known of the spelling error in their marriage record, both being illiterate. “Cyntha,” a rather common Kentucky name of the period, rather than “Cynthia,” assumed by many Tapscott family historians, is probably correct, since “Cyntha” or the homophone “Sintha” is found in most contemporary sources.

The 1870 census, which shows Cyntha’s granddaughter, “Syntha” Tapscott, living with her “cousin” “Margret” and Thomas Cox, provided the lead needed to unravel Cyntha’s origins. Margaret Cox’s mother, was Paulina McAnally (or “McAnelly”). Paulina, also illiterate, is named in records as “Linna,” “Linny,” “Linney,” “Lidia,” “Mary,” and “Malinda,” in addition to “Paulina” (which is found only once). The first three designations may be nicknames for Paulina. The source of the others is unknown, though Paulina may have had a sister named “Malinda.”

The discovery of the “cousin” designation was followed by the uncovering of a deed for heirs of Abraham Followell that named Cyntha and Richard Tapscott; a marriage bond giving Paulina’s father as Abraham Followell; and death certificates for two of her children showing Paulina’s maiden name to be Followell. A little more work made it apparent that Cyntha and Paulina were daughters of Abraham Followell and his wife Keziah Miles. “Syntha” Tapscott, Cyntha Followell’s granddaughter, was actually a first cousin once removed of Margaret Cox. (Why the granddaughter had the last name “Tapscott” is a future story.) This is shown in the accompanying, greatly abbreviated, chart (contact me for sources and details).

Abraham and Keziah were residents of Washington County, Kentucky, an area with several Followell families. Married in that county on 18 May 1802, the couple raised ten or so kids along Rolling Fork Creek, becoming residents of Marion County when it was created from Washington County, 25 Jan 1834. Abraham, Keziah, and the other Followells did not change locations, but their lands did. Around Apr 1853 Abraham died in Casey County, the next county over, where their daughter Cyntha and son-in-law Richard Tapscott were raising four children. The administrator of the estate was Moses Coppage, probably the step grandson of Winifred (Tapscott) Mann, Richard Tapscott's sister (See post of 23 Aug 2014. A Moses Coppage was a grandchild of Joseph Mann from his first marriage.). We find no record of Keziah’s death, but the account of her husband’s estate sale shows that she was still living at the time of Abraham’s death.

The Tapscotts of Ohio

James Tapscott, born in Monmouth County, New Jersey, to William Tapscott (see blog of 4 Apr 2016) was, like his father, active in the Upper Freehold Baptist Church (the Old Yellow Meeting House). Most of his church activities were routine—working to settle church property accounts with James and Ashur Cox, admonishing Bro. Joseph Stephens, a church elder and preacher, who was excommunicated because he believed in universal Salvation, and on 18 Sep 1791 being appointed by the church as a member of “ye Association.” But Wait! The last was definitely not routine, and neither was “ye Association.”

After the end of the Revolutionary War, Monmouth County was victimized by what were termed “desperate and vindictive Tories, Refugees, Renegades, Pine-robbers, and a miscellaneous scum of pestilential outlawry.” The “Refugees,” Loyalists who had returned after being driven from New Jersey during the war, were particularly hated. Limited documentation indicates that the situation was not nearly as serious as believed by Monmouth County citizens. Nevertheless, in the spring of 1790 James Tapscott and his brothers-in-law John Longstreet and David Baird, were among 436 citizens of Monmouth County who signed the Monmouth Articles of Association to combat “disaffected” persons, those who did not support government imposed law and order. There were three articles: If Associators were held captive, an equal number of disaffected would be held captive and treated with “British rigor.” If the house of an Associator were burned, the house of a disaffected would be destroyed. If property were stolen, it would be replaced with property taken from disaffected individuals. And in 1791 James was appointed, by a Christian church, to be a member of that most unchristian-like organization, “ye Association.”

On 28 Jan 1772 in Monmouth County, James took out a license to marry Sarah Baird. On exactly the same day Richard Derrick Barkalow (sometimes “Barcalow”) obtained a license to marry Ann (or “Anne”) Baird. It is likely that Sarah and Ann were sisters, who had a joint wedding. On 26 Mar 1786 “Sarah Tapscott wife of James Tapscott” was received by baptism into Upper Freehold Baptist Church.

Shortly after the turn of the century, James and Sarah, accompanied by most of their eight children, traveled to Warren County, Ohio. Sarah died shortly thereafter, 11 Sep 1803, perhaps as a result of the arduous trip. Derrick Barkalow died at very nearly the same time, on 10 Nov 1803, leaving Ann free to marry, and marry she did, to widowed James Tapscott. How did all this happen? We don’t know. Perhaps Ann traveled to Ohio after Derrick’s death. Perhaps James returned to New Jersey to wed Ann. But we know that they did marry, sometime between 1803 and 1805.

Tapscott Meeting House. (Municipality of  Carlisle Web Site.)

In the town of Carlisle in Warren County, James Tapscott deeded an acre or so of land on which was constructed a Baptist Church, the Tapscott meeting house (aka Tapscott Primitive Baptist Church). The church was organized in 1814 with eleven members. A year later, on 3 Nov 1815, James died. Ann was still living when James made his will on 7 Aug 1815. The churchyard, the Tapscott Cemetery, near the meeting house contains the graves of James and Sarah Tapscott and many of their descendants and in-laws. These Ohio Tapscotts are descended from James and Margaret Tapscott of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Whether they are descended from or related to William the Rebel (or, for that matter, Henry the Immigrant of Virginia), we don’t know.

DNA testing could help answer these questions, and that is something I am promoting. If you are a Ohio (or New Jersey) Tapscott, particularly a male bearing the Tapscott name, and would be interested in DNA testing, please contact me.

New Jersey Tapscotts, Revisited

An earlier blog (8 Sep 2014) briefly discussed the Tapscotts of New Jersey. Because of a possible, but only possible, relationship to William Tapscott the Rebel (blog of 22 Mar 2016), we need to take a closer look at this New Jersey group.

A major concern about the history of the New Jersey Tapscotts is the enormous number of on-line trees that include this line (122 public trees in Ancestry.com to date) and the miniscule number of sources provided for those trees. In fact, in some sort of Möbius-strip-like, circular logic, nearly all citations are to other trees. What follows, however, is from original, contemporary, or well-documented secondary sources, not, unless stated otherwise, from on-line trees. (Contact me for sources.)

Upper Freehold Baptist Church
(Old Yellow Meeting House). Wikipedia.

The Tapscotts of New Jersey first appear in rural Monmouth County (which may or may not have been named for the Duke of Monmouth), a county peopled by English, Dutch, Scotch, and Quaker immigrants. In that county is the Upper Freehold Baptist Church, constructed in 1737 following the burning of an earlier 1720 church. No longer regularly used for religious services, the Old Yellow Meeting House, as the structure is now called, is the oldest Baptist church in New Jersey.

In the adjoining cemetery stands a marker for one James Tapscott, though, for some reason (probably because it is badly eroded), the marker appears in almost no cemetery surveys. Even Find a Grave doesn’t list it as being in the cemetery. James, who died 13 Mar 1750, aged “about 60” (corresponding to a birth year of 1690), is the earliest known Tapscott of New Jersey. His 6 Mar 1750 will names a wife, “Margaret,” and two sons, William and James.

William was highly active in the Upper Freehold Baptist Church. In 1766 he was one of forty-one parishioners who requested separation from the Middletown Baptist Church, of which Upper Freehold was a branch. Permission was granted. On 13 May 1766, William was one of those subscribing to the covenant for the new church, and two years later, on 7 Apr 1768 he was ordained a ruling elder. According a church book, over the years, William was involved in a “misunderstanding” with one Elizabeth Mason (“amicably Settled,” but the details were never revealed, though Elizabeth was quite sharp-tongued), shingling of the church roof, reprimand of Brother Caleb Carman who was “unsound in ye Doctrines of Grace” (William’s investigation revealed that the charge was unjust), and a £30 bond for the church.

Marker for William Tapscott. Find A Grave.

When he passed away 8 Mar 1786, William was laid to rest in a plot immediately behind his father’s stone in the Old Yellow Meeting House cemetery. His marker is inscribed “In Memory of WILLIAM TAPSCOTT Esq who Departed this Life 8th March 1786 Aged 68 Years and 16 Days,” an age yielding the birth date 21 Feb 1718. To the right of William’s cemetery marker is a badly-scaled stone (also missing from Find a Grave) for an Anne Tapscott, who died 17 Oct 1760, aged 38 years 1 month 25 days, corresponding to a birth date of 22 Aug 1722. (Neither of these birthdate calculations take into account the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.) Anne may be Anne Bretton, who is claimed to have been William’s wife in 122 online trees, not a single one with a reliable source for the assertion.

William’s will, written after Anne’s death, names four children: William Jr., born 8 Sep 1747, operated a paper mill near Allentown, New Jersey, and died about Apr 1819, leaving at least two children, Catherine and Elizabeth. James Sr., born 1750, married Sarah Baird, had eight children, moved to Ohio, and appears in our next posting. Lucy, born in 1743 or 1744, married John Longstreet (license 28 Jan 1769), and died 21 Oct 1836, leaving five children (according to secondary sources). Lydia, born about 1855, married James Gaston 20 Apr 1773 (a marriage yielding one child), then married David Baird (yielding six children), and died 15 Feb 1791.

James Tapscott Jr., the other son of James and Margaret, is a most interesting individual. Possibly never having left England, he was a physician in Hinckley, Leicestershire, England, dying in that county around Jan 1799, apparently without descendants. We know he was William’s brother because his will specifically names as legatees “Nephews and Niece namely William Tapscott James Tapscott and Lucy Longstreet who are all natives of and reside in America,” noting that William resided “at Monmouth in North America.” Lydia, his other niece, was dead by 1799 and, thus, not mentioned in James’s will.

And what were the origins of the first James, husband of Margaret? “Danny” (Joseph Daniel) Tapscott, a descendant of Capt. Henry Tapscott of Virginia and a Tapscott genealogy pioneer, a giant on whose shoulders Tapscott researchers stand, claimed that William the Rebel founded the New Jersey (and, therefore, the Ohio) Tapscotts. But Danny died an early death and his research records stored in the Northumberland County Historical Society contain no indication of how he came to this conclusion. If James were the son of William the Rebel, how did he come to be in New Jersey? Did the Rebel go to New Jersey from Jamaica? If so, how did one of his sons end up in England? A number of people have published trees claiming that the father of the first James Tapscott of Monmouth County, New Jersey, was John William Tapscott born 22 Nov 1667, and living in Culmstock, Devon, England. The name is certainly suggestive, the location is correct, and the birth date is acceptable for John William to be William the Rebel. He would have been seventeen at the time of the Monmouth Rebellion, old enough to be a rebel, particularly in those days, though a little young to be designated a “sergeweaver.” A major problem, however, is that only on-line trees have been cited as sources for John William Tapscott, another case of trees citing trees. Has no one learned of evidence? sources? facts? documentation?

The New Jersey Tapscotts were fascinating. Many family members were involved in the Revolutionary War, which was particularly vicious in Monmouth County. And with some dedicated research, a true, or at least reliable, family history is probably attainable. But I am not a descendant of the New Jersey Tapscotts and have other fish to fry, or, at least, other dramas to divulge. In the next posting, we will move into Ohio with James Sr., son of William and (presumably) Anne.