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.