Tuesday, April 28, 2020

The Book

Yes, I am still working on Henry's Children, The Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley. 316 pages thus far, 100 or so to go. Is the book a comedy, a tragedy, a drama, a mystery, a western, a thriller? We'll have to wait and see. Even I don't know. And you descendants of Henry and Susan (Bass) Tapscott of Clark Co, Illinois, please send me anecdotes, photos, stories about your ancestors at retapscott@comcast.net. I may wish to use what you send in the book. Of course you would be acknowledged and would probably get a free copy of the book.


Saturday, April 11, 2020

A Trip to Gideon Mill


It’s exciting to find the actual words of an early relative. Many years after it happened, the 1 Apr 1954 issue of the Clark County Democrat reports a tale attributed to my great grandfather, William Tapscott, by Ben Strohm, one of the small boys in the photo below.

Gideon Mill, date unknown (Clark Co Genealogical Library).


The eldest of Henry and Susan’s children, William, was born 25 Aug 1826, presumably in Green Co, Kentucky, where his father was living in 1822, but possibly in nearby Barren Co, where the family resided in 1830. At age eleven or so William left Kentucky with his parents, eventually ending up in Clark County’s Darwin Twp with eight siblings. There he helped his father farm. William is claimed to have told the following tale about a 1840 errand to what became known as Gideon Mill, where today’s North Choctaw Road crosses Mill Creek:
William slept under a bolting
chest (Library of Congress).


I drove an ox team to mill to get some grinding done, but so many were ahead of me that I had to stay all night. For supper we ate parched corn. Mr. Duckwall fixed me a place to sleep under the bolting chest for breakfast we had bill of fare as for supper. The whopping I got when I returned home impressed the event on my mind.