Thomas Cobb Tapscott's Buckingham County Land

Today I received an email from Paige Anderson, a J. D. candidate at the University of Virginia School of Law and Executive Editor of the Virginia Law Review, providing information on what became of the land Thomas Cobb Tapscott left to his children Amanda Davis and George T. Tapscott. Here is her email in full:

I posted on your blog the other week about Thomas Tapscott’s land in Buckingham County, VA; sorry it has taken me a while to get back to you, but I was out of town and just pulled out my notes.

As I know you know, Thomas left land for George and Amanda on his death – 60 acres and 34 acres, respectively.   George died intestate.  The property went to his children and their spouses: George T. Tapscott, Jr. & Kate Allen Tapscott, Adson W. Tapscott, Nannie T. Berkely & Fletcher Berkely, and Malina T. Fields.  The land was not divided, and on Jan 21, 1966, the children sold it to C. Douglas Branch & Clayton C. Bryant.  There are two other transactions after that, but they were essentially paper transactions (or so it appears, because the names on them are of land dealers in the area).  My husband’s late father acquired that tract in 1991.  The deed still refers to it as the George T. Tapscott tract.

Amanda inherited 34 acres, but it was not recorded until 1890.  She and her husband, Enoch, both died intestate; Gay O. Parsons and Edna Parsons Cosby were the heirs.  In 1979-1980, there was a suit, Cosby v. Parsons, in Buckingham County Circuit court regarding the disposition of the land.  I only have the deed resulting from this suit, not any of the court papers.  The deed transferred the 34 acres (as well as 46 acre parcel acquired separately) to Roland & Sharon Parson and Travis & Wanda Parson.  The owners of the 34  acres had been: Gay O. Parsons (1/2) & Dorothy Robinson (1/8), George E. Cosby (1/8), Zack Cosby (1/8), and Edna Taylor (1/8).  [I think I’m correct on this] This deed specifically refers to the 34 acres as being placed in the Buckingham County books in 1890 under the name Amanda Tapscott.  (Which is interesting – this is the only place I have ever seen her using the name Tapscott, not Davis prior to her marriage).  In 1998, Travis & Wanda Parson sold the land to C. Douglas Branch.  (I’m not sure what happened to Roland & Sharon’s share—they may taken land on the 46 only?)  My husband’s father purchased the land a few months later.

I hope this information is helpful to you!

Thomas Cobbs Tapscott, Amanda Davis, and Bill Cosby

I just received the following note on Facebook from Robert J. Tapscott, Great Grandson of George Nicholas. and Ann Ethyl (Scruggs) Tapscott (and Great Grandnephew of Thomas Cobbs Tapscott)

re Black Tapscotts possible link in Buckingham: There was a black man named George Tapscott in Buckingham in the 1930s. A possible link might be Thomas C Tapscott, a brother of George Nick, who was never married but willed some land to a black woman and her offspring???

Since my comments are a little lengthy, I thought I would put them here.

Coleman and Samuel Cosby were children of
Zacharia and Louisa Crosby

Thomas Cobbs Tapscott founded a large line of mixed-race descendants. Never legally married, Thomas is believed to have fathered two children, Amanda Lee Davis and George Davis (who later adopted the name “George Thomas Tapscott” ), probably with Amanda Davis, a black cook living in nearby Maysville Township.  The two children, born around 1864, were living with Thomas (Amanda as a servant and Gorge as a farmhand) at the time of the 1880 census.  Thomas’s 9 November 1881 will left some land to “Amanda J. Davis,” probably the daughter rather than the mother.  Thomas’s grave, birth date 14 February 1814, death date 6 May 1882,  lies on or near his father George’s land on Rock Island Creek.  The plot contains a second stone with no markings.

Of particular interest is that Amanda, the daughter, married Enoch L. Parson. In 1900 she and her husband were living in Buckingham County, Virginia, and had taken in as a boarder her first cousin once removed, Napoleon Bonaparte Tapscott (grandson of George Tapscott Sr.). This possibly surprising connection helps verify Amanda's relationship to the Tapscott family.

Perhaps of even greater interest is that Amanda and Enoch's daughter Edna E. Parson married Coleman Vernon Cosby, great uncle of the well-known entertainer Dr. William Henry "Bill" Cosby (See Johni Cerny," From Maria to Bill Cosby: A Case Study in Tracing Black Slave Ancestry," National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol 75, No. 1, pp. 5-14.) Thus we Tapscotts are connected to Bill Cosby, but not by blood since Cosby is descended from Coleman Vernon's brother Samuel not from Vernon Coleman.

Some of this appears in the second edition of my book, perhaps I will include all of it.