Fauquier County Tapscotts - Telem Tapscott

“The First Vote,” engraving, Harper’s Weekly,
 1867. (Special Collections, Library of Virginia.)

Following the Civil War, slavery ended…well, sort of. In Southern states, former slaveholders passed “Black Codes,” restricting the rights of people of color. In Virginia and elsewhere, the “Black Codes” were little more than enslavement by a different name. In 1866, Congress proposed the Fourteenth Amendment, giving people of color citizenship, and passed legislation requiring that former Confederate states hold conventions to write new constitutions. On 22 Oct 1867 an election was held in Virginia to determine whether or not Virginia would hold a constitutional convention and to elect delegates to such a convention. This was the first election in the United States that included African American participants. In Fauquier County 1,139 colored voters participated in the election. Telem Tapscott, grandson of the Coachman, was one of them.

Sometime between 1860, when he appears living with his father and mother, Telem Plato and Margaret Pinn, in the Northeast Revenue Distr of Fauquier County, and 1870, when he was living in the Cedar Run Distr with his wife, Margaret, Telem Tapscott had married.

And who was Margaret? We aren’t certain since no marriage record has been found. The 1860 census for Fauquier County, however, shows only one person with the racial characteristics, name, and age corresponding to the data given for Telem’s wife in the 1870 and 1880 censuses. That person was Margaret Lewis, inferred daughter of Anthony Lewis. Margaret and Anthony were both listed as paupers.

There is no indication that Margaret and Telem had any children. In the 1880 census for Cedar Run they are, however, found housing two male Tapscotts, both listed as nephews—thirteen-year-old Warner and twelve-year-old James. Warner was a son of Telem’s sister Nancy Tapscott. Nancy had passed away on 14 Nov 1877 and her children had scattered. Warner had ended up with his uncle Telem. And who was James? We don’t know for certain, but it seems likely that he was also a son of Nancy. But we know of no son named James. Perhaps he was Nancy’s son Robert, with a different name owing to enumerator error or a decision for a name change. The latter was a frequent occurrence among the early Fauquier Co Tapscotts.

Telem apparently did well for himself. On 29 Jun 1868, he and Margaret paid $70 as a down payment for twenty acres of land from William Doddridge Chichester and William's brother Thomas Thornton, with an additional $330 to be paid in installments. The land had had been devised to the two Chichester brothers by their grandmother Fannie (Sydnor) Chichester. The purchasing power of $400 in 1868 would be almost $9000 today. And a year later, on 26 Jun 1868, Telem and Margaret purchased an additional twenty-two acres from Thomas Chichester, Thomas’s wife, Roberta, and Joseph T. Fishback for $20 per acre, amounting to $440.

Telem died 4 Jan 1888 near Auburn in Fauquier County from a cut by an axe.