John and William

Our last post said that we would take a look at Richard and Cyntha Tapscott’s children—William W., Kasiah, John W., and George W. Let's start with William and John.

Born between 1845 and 1846 in Kentucky, presumably in Casey County, John is by far the easiest to write about. He only appears once, with his parents in the 1850 census, and is never seen again. End of story.

The story of William, who as far as we know, never married, is a little longer. In 1860 he was living with his mother and her new husband, Christian Weatherman, in Marion County, Kentucky, under the name “William Weatherman.” Of course the name assignment may have just been an assumption by the census enumerator.

Morgan's Raiders

William may have been living in Marion when, on 5 Jul 1863, Morgan’s Raiders, a band of Confederates led by General John Hunt Morgan, passed through the county seat of Lebanon during a 1000-mile incursion into the North. Twenty buildings were burned and well over three hundred Union soldiers were captured (but then paroled). There is no indication that William took part in the War, but if he had, it would have almost certainly been in the Union Army. The relatively few descendants of William the Preacher who enlisted were all Unionists. None are known to have owned slaves (unlike the Preacher's ancestors).

By 1870, William was back in Casey, the next county over, living alone under his birth name (actually, as “Tabscott”), farming land not his own, and sharing the county with two other William Tapscotts — William Rice and William Wesley, son and grandson of William Stewart and Rhoda (Coppage) Tapscott. (Ten years earlier, we could have added William Stewart to the list of William Tapscotts of Casey County, but William Stewart Tapscott had died in March of 1860, killed by a falling tree.) Then William W. Tapscott disappears, presumably dying between 1870 and 1880, when he is missing from the census.

The stories of Richard’s other two children are considerably more interesting, and considerably more strenuous to research. Our next posting will look at Richard Tapscott’s only known daughter, Kasiah.