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.