Fauquier County Tapscotts – Telem and Peggy’s Final Three

I wish it were the “Final Four,” which is more alliterative and sporty. But there are just three additional children of Telem and Peggy to biograph. I have saved them until last since they led lives lacking drama and left no known descendants. And be careful about my use of the phrase "Final Three," which refers to the last three we are looking at, not the birth order. (Though the two are close. See Telem and Peggy.)

William Tapscott

Born in May 1850 and a laborer, William (“Billy”) led a rather unexciting life. He was single until about age 45 (41, according to the marriage record), when on 21 Oct 1895 in Fauquier Co, he married Mildred Smith. Mildred, was the 39-year-old widow of George A. Smith. Born c1852 to Harrison Smith, George had died of consumption on 7 Jan 1890 in Greenville, an African-American community that no longer exists, located between Marshall and Nokesville in Fauquier County. Mildred died soon after she and William were married. In the 1900 census, William was listed as widowed and was living with his brother Robert in Cedar Run Twp. He is not seen again. No evidence is found to indicate that either William or Mildred had any descendants.

Maggie Tapscott

Telem and Peggie’s last daughter was likely named “Margaret” but she is seen only as “Maggie” in two Fauquier County censuses, first as a child in 1860 with her parents and then in 1870 with some of her siblings following her parents’ deaths. Her ages in the two census records correspond to widely different birthyears, c1853 and c1849. We will use c1851 as her birthyear. Maggie is found in no additional records, probably owing to either an early death or to marriage with a name change.

George Tapscott

George, the final known child of Telem and Margaret, was probably born around 1853, an average from two Fauquier County census records. In 1870 George was a farm worker while living with his sister Nancy. George died in Fauquier County 9 Oct 1878 around age 25, still unmarried. He is said to have died of dyspepsia, but that is unlikely. He may, however, have died from whatever was causing the dyspepsia. George had no known descendants.

If I am wrong about no descendants of the final three (or anything else), please let me know.

And this ends our tale of the Coachman’s descendants, at least the early ones. This blog has named 47 early descendants and 32 spouses of those descendants. But my admittedly incomplete database has a total of 180 Plato descendants and 101 spouses. Some of them are among you readers and some will be attending this year’s Tapscott Family Reunion.

What we have seen so far, the Cundiff and Plato lines, are Tapscotts in name only (excluding some mixed-line descendants, of which there are probably many). Coming up next are genetic Tapscotts, descendants who inherited both the Tapscott name and the Tapscott genes.

Fauquier County Tapscotts - Nancy M. Tapscott

Nancy’s marker. (Find a Grave)

Telem and Margaret's daughter Nancy is first seen at age 14 (b c1846) in 1860 as a “Pearson” with her parents and siblings in what would become Cedar Run Distr. In 1870, she is found living in Cedar Run with four children, Hampton, Virginia (“Jennie”), Warner, and Margaret, all presumed to be her offspring. A fifth child, Robert Lee, born after the 1870 census, is also believed to be a child of Nancy because he is found in a later census living with Hampton, who is designated as his brother. Though all the children except Robert are found in the 1870 census living with their mother and having the name “Tapscott,” later in life they all used the name “Chichester.” And the reason may be obvious. They appear to have all been fathered by William Doddridge Chichester, a white neighbor, who we have seen before.

Nancy died on 14 Nov 1877 and was buried in Poplar Forks Baptist Church Cemetery with the name “Nancy M. Chichester.” Her marker has the oldest death date in the cemetery. Following Nancy’s death, her five children all moved to the District of Columbia, and later some moved on to Philadelphia. Many of her descendants were, or were married to, dressmakers and waiters.

Idlewile Hotel and Resort, 1897, where
Hampton worked. (Wikimedia Commons.)

The name of Nancy’s oldest child, Hampton, who was born around 1864, is shown with the middle initial “H” in a single record and with the name “Wade” in two city directories. That he was given the name “Hampton Wade” or converse is difficult to believe since Wade Hampton III (1818-1902) was an infamous slave-owning South Carolina plantation owner and politician who served as a Confederate general during the Civil War and had KKK connections during reconstruction. Hampton Chichester was living in DC as early as 1880, and lived there until at least 1899, at times with his brothers Warner and Robert Lee, his first cousin Robert J. Tapscott, son of Ann Virginia, and his second cousin James Tasco Tapscott, son of Cordelia. Around 1887, Hampton married a Virginia-born woman who we know only by her given name, “Alice E.” Around 1900 Hampton and Alice moved to Philadelphia, where for the next 25 years Hampton worked as head waiter at the Idlewild Hotel, near Media, Pennsylvania. Following Hampton’s sudden death on 3 Aug 1925 from a heart attack, the owner of the hotel said “We have lost a valuable man. He was esteemed by the patrons of the house.” Born around 1870, Alice had died five years earlier than Hampton, on 3 Jan 1920 in Philadelphia. Hampton and Alice left no known children.

Virginia Chichester, Nancy’s second child, was probably born around 1864, although birthyears calculated from Virginia’s age in various records vary widely. By 1885 Jennie, the name she often used, was living in DC and sewing for a living. Three years later, in DC, Virginia married William J. Lewis, a hotel waiter, born in Virginia in January 1860. The couple had two children, William J. Lewis Jr. and Genevieve Lee Lewis. William Sr. died 4 Jan 1933 and Virginia died 10 Jan 1939, both in DC.

Born c1866, Warner Crain Chichester moved to DC, where he married Marian B. Hunter in 1888. The couple had a single child, Carl Hampton Chichester, but Warner died quite young. After being judged a “lunatic” in 1894, Warner died around age 29 in DC on 17 Jul 1895, "after a long and painful illness". Marian, who remarried, died 30 Apr 1843 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Margaret (“Maggie”) M. Chichester, born c1867, ended up in DC like the rest of her siblings, and it may have been while living there that she married Andrew J. Corum. Born in January 1866,  Andrew’s middle name was likely “John” since he and Margaret had a son Andrew John Corum Jr. The Corums had at least twelve children, most of whom died young. On 1 Apr 1920, 21-year-old Andrew Jr. was shot to death by his fiancé "because he refused to keep his promise to marry her." Frances Spinner, the fiancé, was sentenced to 20 years in the penitentiary. Andrew Sr. died in DC on 31 Jul 1932, and Margaret died there on 17 Jan 1939, just a week after her sister Virginia had passed.

Nancy’s final known child, Robert Lee Chichester, was born in Fauquier County, probably on 28 Oct 1872, though his death certificate gives a year of 1875. In 1889 and 1890 he was living on DC with brothers, but by 1900 he was in Philadelphia. It was there that, on 2 Oct 1905, he married Estelle Freeman. The couple had one known offspring, Catherine, born c1911. Catherine is seen in only one record and apparently died as a child. Robert died on 22 Apr 1946 in Philadelphia. Estelle, who had been born in Philadelphia on 6 Oct 1873, died there on 14 Dec 1963. There is some evidence that Robert and Estelle did quite well financially, but that is another story.

Fauquier County Tapscotts - Elizabeth, Daughter of Telem and Peggy

One wonders if Elizabeth, daughter of Telem and Peggy, was named after her grandmother,  the progenitor of Fauquier County Tapscotts, Elizabeth Percifull Tapscott. 

Elizabeth first appears as 12-year-old “Elizabeth Pearson,” with her parents in the 1860 census and as 22-year-old “Elizabeth Tapscott” in the 1870 census for Cedar Run, where she is living with her brother Robert, and some other siblings, following the death of their parents. Then in 1880, she is seen as “Lizzie Tapscot,” living in the town of Warrenton. And she is said to be married, but where is her husband? In 1900, with a date of birth given as Feb 1848, Lizzie Tapscott is back in Cedar Run, where she now widowed with two children, William J. Tapscott and Mason Tapscott. But the record gives William’s and Mason’s birth dates as February 1870 and July 1874. Why then do they not appear in the 1880 census with Elizabeth? With a little work, we can find William, who, in 1880 at age 9, was a servant in a Fauquier County household. Perhaps, Elizabeth “farmed him out” so she could work elsewhere. But there is still no sign of Mason in 1880.

Gertrude Tapscott (posted on Ancestry
 by prestonmcleecarterbell.)

The 1900 census claims that Elizabeth is the mother of three living children. The third, it turns out, was Gertrude H. Tapscott, who married Hamilton Preston on 26 Jun 1889 in Fauquier Co and, when Hamilton died around 1907, married James Lewis Jasper in DC on 13 Sep 1911. The record of the first marriage gives Gertrudes’s mother as Elizabeth and her father as William, with no last name. Like her brother Mason, Gertrude, who was born in June 1873, should have appeared in the 1880 census, but did not.

Gertrude died in DC around 11 Sep 1912, leaving seven children. Her second husband, James, born 3 Jun 1875, died in DC on 14 Sep 1946.

Records provide a range of birth years for Mason Tapscott with an average of about 1875. Around 1900, Mason Tapscott married “Anna” (c1882–c1919) and had six known children. Mason is last seen as a widower in 1920, in Ellicott City, Maryland.

We have no idea of what became of Elizabeth’s son, William J. Tapscott. He is last seen living with his mother and his brother, Mason, in the 1910 census for the Cedar Run Distr.

Elizabeth died sometime between 1920, when she appears in the census for Cedar Run Distr, and 1930, when she is found in no census. 

Birthday gathering for Elizabeth Tapscott, who is seated directly behind the cake, c1920. Her grandson, William Mason Preston Sr., son of Gertrude and Hamilton Preston, is standing directly behind her. (Courtesy of Lisa Preston.)

I know that there are some descendants of Elizabeth out there and I am hoping to hear from you. Let me know of errors, disagreements, etc. And if you know anything about where Mason and Gertrude were at the time of the 1880 census or what became of William J., please let me know. And while we are at it, who was Gertrude’s father, William? There have been a multitude of guesses about William, but that is all they seem to be. Does anyone have proof of or at least evidence about William’s identity?