The Enigmatic Sweitzers, Chapter 2

Our last post reported that the Darwin Twp neighbors Elizabeth (Tapscott) Sweitzer and Timothy A. Harmon traveled 200 miles to the tiny hamlet of Markle, Indiana, for their 8 Mar 1887 marriage and we asked “Why”? And how could two of Timothy’s daughters, who came along, meet their future mates and marry them in such short order?

But there is a much greater mystery. Just a little over four months after his second marriage, Timothy was married a third time, on 20 Jul 1887, in Sodus Twp, Berrien County, Michigan, 140 miles north of Markle. The bride was Mary E. (McGoldrick) Adair Sink, a widow who had outlived two previous husbands.

How in the world could Timothy have dissolved his marriage to Elizabeth, traveled to Berrien County, and met, wooed, and married Mary in just four months? And why would he have done so? Timothy’s father, George, had died in Tuscarawas County in 1836 and his widowed mother and at least four of her children had ended up in Berrien County. Moreover Mary McGoldrick’s second husband was Henry Sink, one of the Tuscarawas County Sinks. But these connections do not explain the rapid failure of Timothy and Elizabeth’s marriage and the rapid completion of Timothy’s following marriage.

You might ask, is there any possibility that we have somehow mixed different Timothys and Elizabeths? The answer is “No.” The evidence is irrefutable (see figure).

Part of the "irrefutable proof" is that the Huntington County marriage record correctly gives Timothy's parents as "Geo." and

"Elizabeth Thomas" and Elizabeth's parents as "Henry Tabscott" and "Susan Bass." Moreover, Elizabeth's name from her first

marriage is given as "Switzer."

By 1900 Elizabeth, still bearing the name “Sweitzer,” but listed as a widow, was back in Clark County living in York Twp with her 26-year-old son Lyman, and residing next door to her son John W. Sweitzer. We last see Elizabeth in the 1910 census, still living with Lyman, but now in the town of Marshall. Then Elizabeth disappears.

Many people claim that Elizabeth (Tapscott) Sweitzer Harmon died in Cook County, Illinois, on 23 Aug 1927, a date found in twenty-five trees on Ancestry. Wrong Elizabeth Sweitzer. That was Elizabeth born 9 May 1860 and wife of Gerhart Sweitzer as a little investigation shows. Our Elizabeth likely died in Clark Co between the dates of the 1910 and 1920 census.

But our story does not end there. On 4 May 1892, the Clark County Herald published a list of the proceedings of the April 1892 court. Among the cases in the Chancery court was the following:

Elizabeth Sweitzer vs. Geo. Sweitzer, divorce; defendant defaults d. Decree pro confesso. Divorce granted complainant, who pays costs.

Is this our Elizabeth and George Sweitzer? It would seem so. I can find no other couple with those names who could have been living in Clark County at the time. But that would mean that George was still living and he and Elizabeth were still married at the time of Elizabeth’s marriage to Timothy Harmon five years earlier. That would certainly explain why the marriage was so short. It was illegal.

The term “Decree pro confesso” in the newspaper report meant that the defendant, George, made no answer to the bill and its allegation was therefore taken "as confessed." Of course, were George deceased at the time, he would have been unable to answer the bill, but, in this case there would have been no divorce granted. And at the time he was not deceased, as it turns out. From the Clark County Herald, 22 Nov 1900 is George's death announcement:

Walnut Prairie

Geo. Switzer, an aged man living one mile north of this place, died very suddenly last Thursday night [15 Nov]. He had been quite poorly for several weeks, but his friends did not realize that the close of his days was so near. He left a wife, four sons and one daughter to mourn the death of a loving husband and father.

The announcement fits George to a t. About seventy years old, he was "aged." Just north of Walnut Prairie is Darwin Twp, where George resided most of his adult life. And he had four sons and one daughter (eliminating "Allice," who is believed to have died young).

But our Sweitzer story has more mysteries and intrigues, one involving Elizabeth (Tapscott) Sweitzer’s son John W., the subject of our next blog.

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.

The Richard Tapscott Family– An Overview

This is, I hope, my last post on Richard Tapscott son of William the Preacher. Again, I would like to thank Frank Jarke, one of Richard’s descendants, for passing along some family history that helped unscramble Richard’s line. Frank is more knowledgeable than I am about many aspects of the family Nevertheless, I found a four things of interest (at least to me):

1. There are several comparatively well-researched trees on the internet covering some of Richard Tapscott’s descendants, but almost all fail to actually connect with Richard.

2. Although Richard had four children, only two — Kasiah and George — are known to have left descendants. (I apologize to those of you who have decided to use another of the several names found for Richard Tapscott’s only daughter, but nobody knows for certain what her name was meant to be. Most assuredly, illiterate Kasiah did not know.)

3. The descendants of Kasiah, which comprise the “Kasiah Line” ended up McLean County, Illinois, in and near the town of Bloomington. The George line, on the other hand, ended up in Putney County, Indiana, in and near the town of Greencastle. Of course, these families have spread out today. Nevertheless, their roots are in McLean and Putney counties and that is where extensive research must start.

4. There are, today, no descendants of Richard Tapscott bearing the family name “Tapscott,” unless they have acquired the name from another source. Richard had but one son with descendants, and that son had only daughters. That, of course, means that yDNA cannot be used to confirm descent from Richard.

I’ve barely made a start on the history of the Richard Tapscott line (though I did collect about 140 new sources), but I’m stopping here to return to my Wabash Valley Tapscotts, descendants of Richard's brother Henry. Others, more closely related to Richard, can carry on the investigation. Contact me if you would like a copy of my gedcom file or a register book file for this family. The information I’ve collected will eventually be made part of my tree “Descendants of Henry Tapscott the Immigrant” on Ancestry.com, but I am not planning anything in print.

The Greencastle Tapscotts

On 27 Nov 1873 in Casey County, Kentucky, Richard Tapscott’s youngest child, George W. Tapscott, born between 1850 and 1852, married Mary Martha Burton. Born 5 Jun 1856 in Pulaski County, Kentucky, Mary was a daughter of Ellis and Elizabeth (Waldon) Burton. Her father, Ellis, had died young of “bronchitis” in Sep 1869, just four years before Mary had married.

Bean Blossom Creek

About 1876, after the birth of their first known child, Cyntha, George and Mary pulled up stakes and headed to Monroe County, Indiana, settling in a township with the rather charming (or at least horticultural) sounding name of “Bean Blossom.” The family barely had time to settle in before George died—sometime between 1880, when he appears in the census, and around 1888, about the time that his widow married John H. King.

The Tapscott/King family ended up living near the town of Greencastle in Putnam County, Indiana, and the history of the descendants of Cyntha and Anna (and of Hazel) is closely tied with that community. Indeed, the Hoosier State Chronicles, a website providing Indiana newspapers, makes it exceedingly easy to uncover the family history, perhaps too easy, because one can become swamped with the abundance of information.

George left two daughters — Cyntha Elizabeth Tabscott and Anna Tabscott. Here the spelling “Tabscott” is used because that is the spelling the girls used. Indeed, there could have been founded a whole line of “Tabscotts” (as has occurred in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, for descendants of Warner Tapscott and Susanna Bishop) except that there were no male descendants to propagate the line. Extremely good evidence exists for the name “Cyntha” for the oldest girl, who was probably named after her grandmother Cyntha Followell, though she is almost always identified by others as “Cynthia” and almost always used only the name “Elizabeth” or “Lizzie.” Mary Martha (Tapscott) King went on to have one more child, Hazel, a child of John King.

Greencastle newspaper articles hint that Annie may have been unconventional, someone who, in other eras, would have been termed a "free spirit," a "nonconformist," or a “hippie.” Perhaps it was too much for her mother and stepfather, for a 1892 local newspaper reported that (for reasons unexplained)

“Dr. Braisher … adopted Miss Anna Tabscott ... She will make that her future home.” 

A newspaper article reported that on 14 Feb 1894 Annie married an “Ab [Abner?] Parrish.” She was only fourteen at the time, and the highly questionable marriage was probably annulled. Subsequent records show her only with her birth name “Tabscott,” never as “Parrish.” Then on 22 Mar 1895 she gave birth to a son, whose name was simply reported as “Tabscott” in the birth record, which lists no father. When Anna married Daniel Ross Burks, a life-long resident of Greencastle, on 16 Dec 1898, her presumably illegitimate son, Harold, was given the name “Harold R. Burks” (claimed by some to be “Harold Ross Burks”). After her marriage, Annie had a second son, Clyde Washington Burks. Married three times, Harold R. had no known children. Clyde, on the other hand, left descendants.

Annie Tabscott’s older sister, Cyntha, married Henry Alba Paris and had eight known children, all boys, with the exception of Edith, who died young. There are today a multitude of Paris descendants in Indiana, few, if any, realizing their connection with Richard Tapscott.

Lillian Myrtle King Nelson Buzick Lott Wedeking Capone?

Lillian Myrtle was the youngest child of Mary Elizabeth Tapscott and Samuel King, though not as young as apparently proclaimed. Early records indicate a birth year of 1902 or 1903, but by the time Myrtle had died, her birth date had become 8 Mar 1905. It appears that two or three years were cut from her age as she grew older.

Before proceeding to our major topic, Al Capone, let’s clear up one mystery. In the 1930 census Myrtle appears as “Myrtle K. Nelson,” divorced, working as a housekeeper for her future husband, James Buzick. Apparently Myrtle was married to a “Nelson,” but who that was no one knew, or was at least not telling. It’s taken a couple of weeks of intensive research, but Myrtle’s first husband is now identified. He was Nels Nelson, son of Henry Oliver Nelson and Bertha Cathrine Olson. Myrtle and Nels were married in 24 Feb 1921 in Gibson City, Ford County, Illinois. Within a space of two years, Lillian gave birth to four children, two dying at or near birth and two, stillborn twins. The failed births may have put a strain on the marriage, for it soon ended in divorce. On 25 Jul 1931, Nels Nelson remarried in Bloomington, Illinois, to Mary E. (Herron) Penn.

Scarface

Thus, Lillian Myrtle King was married four times: to Nels Nelson (25 Jul 1901 - 2 May 1970) on 24 Feb 1921, James Clive Buzick (14 Aug 1890 - 16 Mar 1943) on 12 Jan 1934, Henry Robert Lott (7 Dec 1901 - 8 May 1954) on 1 Feb 1947, and Elmer Wedeking (7 Jan 1905 - 16 Jul 1985) in Jul 1961. Now let’s move on to Big Al. 

In the 1940 census, Lillian and her second husband, James Buzick are found living in Ford County, Illinois, with a 14-year-old “Foster Son,” Billy Knight. Chris W. Knight, Billy’s son, has written a book (Son of Scarface, New Era Publishing, 2014, available on Kindle) about his mysterious dad and his unknown origins. Several believe (or say they believe) that Billy Knight was a son of the mobster “Scarface” Al Capone. One of many possibilities proposed in Chris Knight’s book is that his dad was a child of Capone and Lillian Myrtle. True? I very much doubt it. But the book makes interesting reading and reveals some family history about the Buzicks. It also shows the thought processes that go into researching family history mysteries, though Chris's methodologies are quite different from mine.

Vincent Buell and Mary Elizabeth

Let’s finish with Mary Elizabeth Tapscott, granddaughter of Richard and Cyntha Tapscott, so we can get to more interesting or pressing issues.

We last heard about Mary Elizabeth after her second husband, Squire Jasper (“Bud”) Phillips, was forced to leap from a trestle to avoid being hit by an interurban electric train in Bloomington, Illinois. The leap added barely two days to his life.

Mary Elizabeth Tapscott's final days were spent
at her home on Lee Street in Bloomington.

After Bud Phillip’s death on 20 Sep 1930, Mary waited until 27 Mar 1934 before marrying again, to Vincent E. Buell, a retired farmer, who had spent most, though not all, of his life in McLean County, Illinois. Vincent had gone through three previous marriages, all ending by death. Earlier brides had been Mary A. Strickland (22 Mar 1868 - 19 Nov 1903) on 13 Oct 1892, Mary’s older sister Susan (28 Jun 1853 - 23 Feb 1924) on 27 Aug 1904, and Minerva Moore (5 Jul 1857 - 10 Sep 1933) widow of Charles W. F. Keehma on 24 Dec 1924. (Watch out! There were several Charles W. F. Keemas in the McLean County area, all apparently related and one of them a real scalawag—carjacking, draft dodging, incest. Minerva's Charles was not the scalawag.)

The marriage between Vincent and Mary Elizabeth lasted just a little over four years. Vincent passed away in Bloomington on 27 Mar 1934. Mary lasted well over a decade longer, dying in Bloomington on 7 Dec 1946. She left six children, all from her first marriage. A seventh child, William, also from her first marriage, had died young. Contrary to some published trees, she had no children with Squire Phillips.

I had not intended to go this far down the Richard Tapscott tree, but interesting details kept appearing, and I wanted to correct some errors in published trees, particularly confusion of Squire Jasper Phillips with Squire Logan Phillips. We will go just a little further next time to pick up an interesting tidbit or two about Mary Elizabeth and Samuel King’s daughter Lillian Myrtle King and her (proposed) connection to "Scarface" Al Capone.

Squire Jasper and Mary Elizabeth

Squire Jasper (“Bud”) Phillips, second husband of Mary Elizabeth (Tapscott) King, was born 19 Feb 1867 to John and Sarah (Kays) Phillips in Washington County, Kentucky. In that same county lived Bell Barnett, born in 1871 or 1872 to John and Julia (Brown) Barnett and on 6 Jan 1889 Bell and Squire were wed. The marriage may have ended dramatically, for in the 1900 census for Washington County are found Squire Phillips and his only known child, Roy (born 16 Jun 1891), living with his in-laws, John and Julia, but there is no sign of Bell or her fate. The census shows Squire Jasper to be married, not widowed, and since he was living with his in-laws, a divorce seems quite unlikely. However it happened, he may have been unattached when Mary Elizabeth headed to Kentucky to bury her first husband, Samuel.

Mary Elizabeth Tapscott could have married her second husband, Squire Jasper Phillips, in Kentucky, but by 1910 they were living in Bloomington, Illinois, in Mary’s old home county of McLean. Mary could have been drawn back by her two married daughters, Martha and Bessie. And now comes an interesting twist.

In the 1900 McLean County, Illinois, census appear a Squire L. Phillips and his wife Mary A., both born in Kentucky, with respective birth years of 1866 and 1865. Squire Jasper and Mary Elizabeth were born in Kentucky with respective birth years of 1867 and 1865. Could they be one and the same? Some people have certainly thought so and several distorted family trees have been published in an attempt to combine them. But despite similarities in birth, location, and names, Squire Logan Phillips and Mary Ann Lanham have no known connection to Squire Jasper Phillips and Mary Elizabeth Tapscott.

Mary Elizabeth’s and Squire Jasper’s marriage was shaky. And, in fact, it is a 1916 article about that situation from that wonderfully revealing newspaper, the Bloomington Pantagraph, that provides their marriage date, though not the location:

Mary E. Phillips filed a bill for divorce in the circuit court yesterday against Squire Jasper Phillips. They were married Oct 2, 1909, and separated November 12, 1916. The oratrix presents that her husband is guilty of habitual drunkenness and used obscene language in her presence.

The suit was dropped the following year, and the marriage lasted another thirteen years. But then it ended abruptly. The night of 17 Sept 1930, Squire was crossing Sugar creek in Bloomington by walking on the 10-foot-high Illinois Traction System bridge near St. Mary's cemetery when an interurban car suddenly appeared. He leaped from the trestle to avoid being hit and badly shattered his leg. Rescue from the muddy creek only occurred when, according to the Pantagraph, “Weird Moans From Near Cemetery [were] Traced to Injured Carpenter.” He died just three days later and was buried in Bloomington’s Evergreen Memorial Cemetery.

Mary Elizabeth Tapscott

I’m still working on the descendants of Richard Tapscott, son of William the Preacher, instead of what I should be doing — researching the descendants of Richard’s brother Henry. But Richard’s descendants are fascinating, and I’m not quite ready to call it quits.

Mary Elizabeth Tapscott. (Ancestry.com)

Of Kasiah Tapscott’s two children, only Mary Elizabeth lived long enough to make interesting reading. Born 20 May 1865 to Kasiah and possibly Garrett Vandike, Mary’s Kentucky birthplace is given in various records both as Casey County and Danville, Boyle County. The latter is unlikely. No Followells, Weathermans, or Tapscotts (or Vandikes)—family members who might help an unwed mother—were living in Boyle County at the time, and friends and relatives were abundant in Casey County.

In 1880, presumably following the death of her mother, Kasiah, Mary was working as a domestic servant for the Robert L. King family in Casey County, and that may be how she met her husband-to-be, Samuel Franklin King, probably a relative. (Samuel had a brother Robert, but he was not Robert L.) On 16 Mar 1882, in Liberty, Kentucky, seat of Casey County, Mary married Samuel Franklin King, a Casey County farmer, born in Aug 1863 to James and Charlotta. Mary and Samuel (who went solely by “Frank”) had seven children—William L. (Jan 1883 - by Jul 1907), Martha E. (3 Nov 1884 - 2 Oct 1971), Bessie Charity (1 Nov 1886 - 9 Feb 1975), James Robert (6 Jun 1892 - 15 Apr 1968), George Leslie (13 Feb 1898 - 21 Apr 1959), John Ottle (25 May 1900 - 22 Mar 1974), and Lillian Myrtle (8 Mar 1903 - 4 Oct 1964)—all born in Kentucky.

In 1904, following the birth of Myrtle, the last child, the family (possibly minus William, who died young, and Martha, who had married and could have traveled separately) journeyed to DeWitt County, Illinois. Samuel lived in Illinois only three years, most of the time as an invalid, before passing away on their farm, the Lewis Clark Riggs place near Farmville, in Santa Anna Twp, on 11 Jul 1907 at the young age of 44. Mary was left in a new state with four kids (and two married daughters), with no other nearby relatives, and with no means of support. Moreover, the family was in terrible financial condition, one son, Robert, having provided most of the income when his father was ill. Things were so bad that a collection was taken up among the South Prairie neighbors to help pay for Samuel’s funeral expenses, which may have been high since Samuel’s body was transported back to Kentucky for burial in Minor Cemetery, Boyle County, home of the Kings.

It was in Kentucky that Mary could have met her second husband, Squire Jasper Phillips. She may have decided to reside, at least temporarily, in Kentucky, where she had family (mostly distant cousins and in-laws) and friends. After all, Squire Phillips was born in Washington County, the next county over from Boyle, where Samuel was buried. 

The story of Squire Jasper and Mary is interesting, but tragic, and deserving of a posting by itself, which it will have. See you next time.

Kasiah/Kissiah/Kesiah Tapscott

Permission for “Keziah” Miles to marry Abraham Followell shows the likely source of Kasiah
 Tapscott’s name.  Family Search. Thanks to Chris Summers for bringing this to my attention.

Born between 1842 and 1845 (probably closer to 1842), Richard Tapscott’s only daughter appears in censuses with three given names “Kasiah,” “Kissiah,” and “Kesiah,” all known, though not common, appellations. I have arbitrarily chosen to use the name “Kasiah,” which is found for her in two different contemporary sources. It is likely that she was named after her maternal grandmother Keziah S. (Miles) Followay, and that the spelling was confused. After all, her father and mother were both illiterate (as was Kasiah).

In the 1860 census, she is found at age 17 in two different Marion County, Kentucky, households — that of her stepfather, Christian Weatherman, where she is named “Kasiah Weatherman” (possibly due to an error by the census enumerator) and that of Garrett (“Garit”) Vandike, where she is named “Kasiah Tapcot.”

Ten years later, in 1870, “Kesiah Tabscott” was living in Marion County with two children, 1-year old “Cynthian” (probably meant to be “Cyntha”) and 5-year-old “Mary E.” — two girls with the last name “Tabscott,” Kasiah’s maiden name. Descendants have passed down the story that Mary E. (“Mary Elizabeth Tapscott”) was the illegitimate daughter of Kasiah and a “Garret Van Diner.” It is very likely that the name was actually “Garrett Vandike,” that of the farmer with whom Kasiah was living at the time of the 1860 census.

It may be that a live-in servant, possibly Kasiah’s function, was just too tempting for a 60-year-old man (Garrett’s approximate age when Mary was born). Did Kasiah’s other child, Cyntha, have the same origin? Perhaps, though it is difficult to imagine that Vandike could have continued a relationship over a period of four years, for he had a wife, Sarah F., and five known children, to monitor his actions. And, of course, we have no proof that Garrett was the father.

What is particularly interesting about this tale is that in 1870, Kasiah had a roommate, 32-year-old Mary Emeline Atwood, the niece of Kasiah’s stepfather Christian Weatherman. Christian’s sister, Sarah, had married John Atwood in North Carolina, and following the birth of the first three children (James, Mary Emeline, and John W.), the family traveled to Kentucky (around 1850), presumably with Christian. In 1870 Mary Emeline was living with Kasiah, and she also had children with her — William N., Laura A., Mary E., and Sarah A., all four born between 1860 and 1868. That they bore the last name “Atwood” indicates that they too may have been born out of wedlock. Two single women living together with apparent offspring. Could the two have been banished by their families? Could all the children have been fathered by… but, no, it seems unfair to place suspicion on Garrett once more. Or is it? DNA results could help unravel the mystery.

By 1880, Kasiah’s two children were living in Casey County with others — Mary Elizabeth as a servant in the household of Robert L. King (probably a relative, but not a brother, of her future husband, Samuel Franklin King) and Cyntha with her first cousin once removed on the Followell side (see post of 25 Apr 2016). The oldest (William) and youngest (Sarah) of Mary Emeline Atwood’s children were living with their grandparents, John and Sarah Atwood. Kasiah, Mary Emeline, and Mary Emeline’s two other children are nowhere to be found, nor are they seen again. It seems like a lot of people to have passed away around the same time, if that is what happened.

Kasiah’s youngest child, Cyntha, had a similar fate. After 1880, she disappeared. But Cyntha’s sister, Mary Elizabeth Tapscott (or “Tabscott,” as usually named) lived a long, complex, and exceedingly interesting life, the subject of the next post.

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.