Frances Ann Tapscott

I haven’t died, and I am still working on Henry’s Children, the Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley.

It is often difficult to trace the lives of those who left no present-day descendants—descendants to keep track of ancestors, to pay for memorials, or to report parents in records. Of their twelve children, Henry and Susan (Bass) Tapscott (founders of the Wabash Valley Tapscotts) had four who, today, have no known descendants—John, James Wesley, Frances Ann, and Lydia Ann. I just finished writing the chapter on Frances.

Born in 1839, Frances Ann was the last of Henry and Susan’s children to be born in Indiana, before the family moved to Illinois. On 28 Oct 1858 in Clark County, she wedded Samuel James Lockard (often misspelled “Lockart” or “Lockhart”). His sister, Mary Ann Lockard, had married Frances Ann’s brother Jacob just four day earlier.

Born in Ross Co, Ohio, on 1 Oct in either 1837 (according to his death certificate) or 1838 (according to the 1900 census and his grave marker), Samuel was one of nine children of James and Belinda (Cutright) Lockard.

Samuel and Frances farmed a while in Marshall Twp in Clark County, but by 1870 they had moved to Terre Haute, where Samuel was a carpenter, the job he had most of his life. The 1880 census shows the couple (Frances with the name “Fairy”)  still living at 1012 Walnut Street in Terre Haute. Then tragedy struck. In Jan 1881, forty-two-year-old Frances was laid to rest in Terre Haute’s Woodlawn Cemetery, after dying of “paralysis,” whatever that may mean. She left two children—Martha and Fred.

Samuel lived another forty years in Terre Haute, where he married twice more. On 9 Mar 1882 he wedded Lucinda H. Murphy. Born 8 Aug 1840 in Pulaski Co, Kentucky, Lucinda had two earlier husbands—Michael Sowder, who she married in Pulaski on 24 Apr 1860, and Roland M. Smith who she wedded in Marion Co, Indiana, on 17 Sep 1865. Lucinda died in Terre Haute on 21 Dec 1897 and was buried there in St. Joseph Cemetery.

On 12 Apr 1899 Samuel  married a third time when he wedded Samantha B. Sanders. Born on 7 June 1860 in Sullivan Co, Indiana, to William and Mary A. (Hughes) Sanders, she almost always gave her middle name as “Belle,” possibly short for “Isabelle” or “Isabel,” which is shown in one census record. Samantha does not appear to have been related to the Sanders of Marion Co, Indiana, who had married into the Clark County Tapscotts. Like Samuel’s previous wife, Samantha had been married twice before. On 19 Jun 1887 in Sullivan County, she had married Henry C. Robinson, and on 15 Jun 1891 in Terre Haute she had married William P. Walker.

St. Joseph Cemetery marker, with
a missing body (Find A Grave).

From her second marriage, Samantha had a child, Earl Walker, who ended up in Terre Haute living with Samuel and Samantha. By 1920 things had turned around. Samuel, who was getting up in years, and Samantha were living with Earl and his wife, Ruth, in East Chicago, Indiana. It was there that he died, “from old age.” on 4 Jul 1926. Samantha, who went back to using the name “Walker” (after all, she had a son with that name) lived almost a quarter century more, dying on 27 Aug 1949 in rural Rosedale, Indiana, where Earl had moved.

In St. Joseph Cemetery, Terre Haute, stands a marker for Samuel J. Lockard showing a birthdate, but no death date. The marker was apparently erected following the death of Samuel’s second wife, Lucinda, who is buried there. But Samuel was actually interred in Elmwood Cemetery, Hammond, Indiana.

Next time we'll take a look at Frances Ann's peripatetic children, Martha and Fred.