Fauquier County Tapscotts - Mack

Born in Virginia around 1844, Telem and Margaret’s fifth child, Mack (also “Mac”), began cohabitating with Emily Ford around 27 Feb 1866. The two were never officially married, but we know the date that they first started living together from a 1904 record of divorce proceedings. Why a divorce when the two were not married? Because, they had a common-law marriage, with all the legal ramifications.

In his 1904 divorce suit, Mack claimed that Emily had deserted him three years earlier. In fact, it may have been slightly earlier since in 1900 Emily appears in census records for two different Fauquier County locations, one with Mack in Cedar Run and one with her daughter Louisa in Center Distr. Mack apparently expected her to come back and included her in his household for the 1900 census.

At least one witness thought that the age difference between Mack and Emily was part of their problem. Born in Virginia in 1831, Emily was considerably older than Mack. And she had three children, given the surname “Ford,” from an earlier relationship with an “Albert”–Louisa (b c1855), Josephine (b c1856), and Bell (b c1857). Bell was listed as female in one census and as male in another. And Bell may have been the female “Bell Bruin” who was a servant in Mack’s house in 1910.

On 30 Dec 1875 in Fauquier Co, Louisa Ford married Howard Pinn and left a large number of descendants. Those descendants are not Fauquier Co Tapscotts, but they are connected with them. Howard Pinn's mother, Amanda, was probably the sister of Margaret Pinn, Telem Plato's wife. If so, Telem and Margaret's children were first cousins once removed of Howard and Louisa's children. See Pinn Pals.

Court documents claim that the union between Mack and Emily had produced no children. At first this appears to be untrue since censuses show five family members of the right age to be children of Mack and Emily—Louisa (b c1871), Douglass (b c1874), Isaac (1 Mar 1875–3 Nov 1923), Emily (b Jan 1875), and Rudolph (also “Adolphus,” c1876–14 Jul 1917). All had the surname "Tapscott", and all were born during the time that Mack and Emily were living together. But perhaps these were Mack’s children from a different relationship. In fact, the death certificate for Isaac gives his father as Mack, but his mother as “Unknown,” even though Isaac grew up in a household in which Emily was a member. Of course, the Isaac was not the informant for the death certificate. Moreover, it would be surprising that Emily would name a daughter “Louisa,” when she already had a living daughter with that name.

No evidence has been found showing that any of Mack’s five known children left any descendants, even though two are known to have been married. Isaac had a wife “Mollie” while living in Rankin, Pennsylvania, and Rudolph married Alice Jones, in Lynbrook, New York, on 14 Jul 1917. The lives of Isaac and Rudolph are relatively well-documented, particularly that of Rudolph. In 1917 Rudolph was murdered in New York City, a crime that was reported in several newspapers. According to one article,

His skull crushed with an axe and his throat cut by a razor, the body of Rudolph Tapscott, a negro piano mover, was found in bed in a room of his basement apartment at 60 East 110th street by his wife, who the janitress of the building, early yesterday morning. The axe and razor were found beside the bed. Detectives of the Third Branch are looking for Tapscott’s assailant. whose name was given to them by the murdered man’s widow. The man and Tapscott, the woman said, were quarrelling when she left them earlier in the morning to do her work.

If the culprit was found, his name was never published in a newspaper.

Readers, am I wrong about Mack having no present-day descendants? Do you know of any? I don't.