Palace

I can’t stop thinking about Palace and James R. Tapscott, Horace Tapscott’s great grandmother and great grandfather (previous blog). Who was Palace? Where did she come from? It is almost impossible to determine the origin of a slave, as Palace almost certainly had been. Treated as property, slaves were usually nameless in documents. But I can’t stop thinking about her.

In 1850 thirteen-year-old James was living in Kemper County, Mississippi, with his mother and father, Robert and Olivia (Degges) Tapscott, and with two sisters and three brothers. The Tapscotts were farmers and owned slaves, eight to be exact, five male and three female. And next door to the family lived Olivia’s sister Harriet. who had married Nathaniel R. Crump (who usually went by “N.R.”). And the Crumps also owned slaves, ten.

1860 Slave Schedule, Washington Co, Texas.

Then Robert Tapscott died and for some reason the Crumps, the widow Olivia, and James and his two brothers Rodolphus Curry Tapscott (who almost always went by “R.C.” and who, like his brother James would become a Confederate soldier) and Jonathan R. headed to Washington County, Texas. By 1860 Olivia had remarried and the three boys were living in Washington County with their aunt and uncle Harriet and Nathaniel. There, Nathaniel continued owning slaves, probably most brought with the Crumps and Tapscotts from Kemper County. Nathaniel had eight slaves of his own and six more that he held as an “Agt for 2 Heirs of Tapscot.” These had probably been owned by the deceased Robert. James, Robert's eldest son, was likely one of the two heirs.

Among the slaves belonging to the Tapscott heirs and living on the plantation where James was staying in 1860 were a twenty-year-old woman and a two -year-old boy. Could these have been Palace and her and James’s oldest child, Lewis? The ages are certainly right. Palace had been born in 1840 and Lewis was born in 1858 or 1859. But, we will probably never know Palace's origins with any certainty.