The Enigmatic Sweitzers - Chapter 1

Born in July 1844, Elizabeth Tapscott was the youngest girl among Henry and Susan (Bass) Tapscott’s twelve known children. And she and her descendants present the most confusing conundrums and startling stories found for the Wabash Valley Tapscotts.

On 28 Oct 1858 in Clark County at age fourteen Elizabeth married George A. Sweitzer (“Switzer” in the marriage record), who was twice her age. The marriage may have been legal. Illinois law at the time stated "All male persons over the age of 17 years, and females over the age of 14 years, may contract and be joined in marriage; Provided, in all cases where either party is a minor, the consent of parents or guardians be first had..." On the other hand, the marriage record shows no indication of parental consent.

Born around 1829 in Ohio, to John and Elizabeth (Boyer) Switzer, George Sweitzer’ had grown up in Darwin Township, where Henry Tapscott and his family first settled. George’s family had arrived in Clark County around 1840, about the time that Henry Tapscott had arrived from Kentucky (via Indiana). George may have first met Elizabeth Tapscott when he was well into his teens and she was but a small child. George’s father had been born in Germany, and the family name, originally Schweitzer (“Swiss”), became “Sweitzer” and “Switzer” in America. Both Anglicized versions, often for the same person, are found in Clark County records for John’s descendants.

George and Elizabeth had six children, though one, Allice (yes, that is the spelling in the only known contemporary record) may have died young. After living for a while in Anderson Twp, the Sweitzers moved back to Darwin Twp, where George farmed.

In that same township lived the family of Timothy A. Harmon (sometimes “Harman”) and his wife, Julia Ann Sink. The family, which is said in the obituary of one of their daughters to have had sixteen children (though only nine are known), had moved from Ohio, to Indiana, and finally to Clark County, Illinois. It was there that Julia died on 12 Jul 1883, leaving behind Timothy and several, mostly grown children.

It would appear that George Sweitzer also passed on, for Elizabeth and her widowed neighbor Timothy moved to Markle, Indiana, a small village on the Wabash River, in both Huntington and Wells counties. The couple was married in Huntington County on 8 Mar 1887, with much older Timothy (born Jan 1826) knocking six years off his age in the record, either to fool Elizabeth or just onlookers. Timothy’s two youngest children accompanied (or joined) them and were also married in that area, Matilda T. Harmon to John H. Sink in Wells County in 1887 and Melissa Harmon to William H. Maddux in Huntington County on 18 May 1889. At least two of Timothy’s other children—George H. and Eliza Armenda—remained behind to live out their lives in Clark County, Illinois. Whether any of Elizabeth’s children came along is uncertain, but since Lyman was in his middle teens it seems likely.

Why did Timothy and Elizabeth move to the tiny town of Markle to get married? Markle was almost across the state of Indiana from Clark County. Neither Elizabeth nor Timothy had known relatives there. But the parents (Benjamin and Rosanna) of John Sink, Matilda’s new husband, had been married (on 4 Jan 1841) in Tuscarawas Co, Ohio, where Julia and Timothy Harmon had once lived. The probable presence of some of Julia’s relatives, however, seems an unlikely reason to travel to Markle.

A greater mystery is how Timothy’s daughters who came along, could have met their future spouses and married them in such short order? But things get much, much stranger, as we will see in our next blog.