It’s exciting to find the actual words of
an early relative. Many years after it happened, the 1 Apr 1954 issue of the Clark County Democrat
reports a tale attributed to my great grandfather, William Tapscott, by Ben Strohm, one of the small boys in the photo below.
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Gideon Mill, date
unknown (Clark Co Genealogical Library).
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The eldest of Henry and Susan’s children,
William, was born 25 Aug 1826, presumably in Green Co, Kentucky, where his
father was living in 1822, but possibly in nearby Barren Co, where the family resided
in 1830. At age eleven or so William left Kentucky with his parents, eventually
ending up in Clark County’s Darwin Twp with eight siblings. There he helped his
father farm. William is claimed to have told the following tale about a 1840 errand to what became
known as Gideon Mill, where today’s North Choctaw Road crosses Mill Creek:
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William slept under a bolting
chest (Library
of Congress).
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I drove an ox team to mill to get some
grinding done, but so many were ahead of me that I had to stay all night. For
supper we ate parched corn. Mr. Duckwall fixed me a place to sleep under the
bolting chest for breakfast we had bill of fare as for supper. The whopping I
got when I returned home impressed the event on my mind.
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