Fauquier County Tapscotts - Maria

Harriet had two children—Maria Ann Tapscott, the first born, and Cordelia Tapscott. A third child, John, is sometimes claimed. But John, who appears in an 1860 Fauquier County census with Harriett and Cordelia, was Cordelia’s partner rather than her brother. We will hear more about Cordelia and John in the future. But in this and the next few blogs, we will be looking at Maria and her relatives, an exceedingly complex group of people. Indeed, one could write a single book about Maria and her connections.

Records for both her first and second marriages, show Maria Ann Tapscott, born c1832 according to a weighted average of census data, to be a child of Harriet, but no father is recorded. With a complete absence of evidence, an Eli Penn (also “Pinn”) Tapscott is often claimed to be the father of Maria, and sometimes of her sister, Cordelia. There was an Eli Pinn that lived in Fauquier County at the time and whose sister, Amanda, married Harriet’s half-brother William Tapscott (more on all that later). But that Eli Pinn was born c1823 and would have been a young child when Maria and Harriet were born. No other Eli Penn/Pinn or Eli Tapscott is found in Fauquier County records. We have no evidence of who fathered Maria.

On 6 Apr 1848 in Fauquier County, Maria married John F. Martin. John had been born in Virginia around 1824. A Thomas Martin was a surety for the marriage bond. John and Maria lived out their married life in Fauquier County, where John was first a laborer and then a wheelwright, and where the couple had six known children—Jane E., Virginia A., John Robert. James Henry, Jefferson D., and Louisa.

John Martin died c1863. He is seen in the 1860 census, but when Maria married a second time, to Alfred C. Martin in Fauquier County on 12 Jan 1867, the record showed that she was a widow.

Maria’s second marriage was short, for tragic reasons we shall soon see, but it did result in a child, Carrie. We last see Maria living as a widow 1880 in Cedar Run District with Carrie and the two youngest children from Maria’s first marriage, Jefferson and Louisa.

Eventually we will look at each of Maria’s children, but our next blog is on the ancestry of Maria’s husbands. Be prepared to be bored with lots of data and lots of confusing connections.