Austin Sweet Jr.

Austin Sweet Sr. (post of 9 Sep 2017) and his wife, Mary Ellen Johnson, had fourteen children. One of those, Richard Morgan Sweet, married Cora Isabelle Tapscott (post of 21 Nov 2016). Another, Austin Sweet Jr., was a protagonist in a tragic episode.

Austin Jr. received degrees from Westfield College and in 1898 from Northern Illinois Law School, Dixon, Illinois. After working for a year in Marshall for the law firm of Golden and Tibbs, he moved to Terre Haute, Indiana, where he practiced law from 1899 to 1929, primarily defending criminals, even those who had little or no funds.

On 28 Aug 1901, in Hartsville, Indiana, Austin married Mary E. Beck. The marriage was brief. A 12 Oct 1904 newspaper article stated “Austin Sweet, who has instituted more divorce suits than any other local attorney, was defendant today in a divorce suit brought by his wife.” A Terre Haute divorce was granted the same day. There were no known children.

A little over two months later, on 22 Dec 1904, Austin married Goldie B. Fulghum in Terre Haute. The marriage was cut short by Goldie's 31 Jul 1907 death, but there was a child, Nina. Born 23 Oct 1906, Nina married Claude Lameer, and in 1927, was working as a stenographer in her father's Terre Haute law firm of Sweet and Edmonds.

On 6 Nov 1909 Austin was married for the third and final time, to Alma Elva Shook, in Marshall, Illinois, allowing the couple to “trot through life in double harness,” according to the Marshall Republican. The “harnessed” couple had two children, Dixon Holmes, born 5 Jul 1911,  and Ellen Jean, born 7 May 1914.

Things were going well for Alma and Austin, who was acquiring legal fame and fortune in Terre Haute, a fortune admittedly limited by Austin's policy of defending low-income individuals. But those halcyon days would soon end.

Big Raccoon Creek, spanned by Bridgeton Bridge (2001).

On Sunday, 7 Apr 1929, Austin, his son Dixon, and his office janitor, Howard Franklin, went fishing at Big Raccoon Creek in Parke County, Indiana. Unfortunately Austin had no Parke County fishing license and was spotted by game wardens. Sweet, known for argumentative outbursts, claimed that he had a permit, but the wardens found none. He then claimed he had not yet put his line in the water and was therefore innocent. Nevertheless, the wardens obtained a warrant and served it to Sweet in Terre Haute the following Thursday, 11 April. A member of the arresting party was Constable John Van Hook, with whom Sweet had been quarreling for years. The feud had undoubtedly increased in 1927 when Austin defended James Caldwell accused of murdering another Vigo County Constable, H. P. Dalton. (Particularly damaging to Van Hook's opinion of Austin was that Austin's law partner, William B. Edmonds, may have attempted to hide Caldwell from the law.)

Terre Haute Tribune,

Fri 12 Apr 1929

During the arrest at the office of Sweet and Edmonds, Van Hook exchanged heated words with Austin, pulled a gun, and shot Sweet once in the head. Austin died the same day. On 13 April a Vigo County grand jury presented Van Hook with an indictment, charging that on April 11 he did “unlawfully and feloniously, purposely and with premeditated malice kill and murder Austin Sweet by shooting with a gun then and there loaded with leaden ball, from the effects of which shooting Sweet died.” Investigation determined, in fact, that John Van Hook was a Deputy Constable with no legal status. He had been present at the attempted arrest of Austin Sweet only by invitation. On 26 Oct 1929 Van Hook was found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced to serve 2 to 21 years at the Michigan City state prison.

Indiana State Prison, Michigan City,

c1927 (Michigan City Public Library).

Van Hook's victim was laid to rest in Terre Haute’s Highland Lawn Cemetery. Alma, who married again (to J. Frank Meunier), lived another 43 years, dying 26 Sep 1972 in Brazil, Indiana. She also rests in Highland Lawn.

Austin Jr.'s three children have also passed on. Nina (Sweet) Lameer died 21 Dec 1997; Dixon Sweet, who never married, 3 Jan 1969; and Ellen Jean (Sweet) Moss, 1 Sep 2001. Only Ellen had children. One was named “Austin.”

Austin Sweet Sr.

In these blogs, we have often seen the name of Austin Sweet Sr., father of Richard Morgan Sweet, who married Cora Isabelle Tapscott of Clark County, Illinois. Austin Sr., was a veterinarian and farm owner. Here is a story about Austin and two of his grandchildren, Carrie and Mary (“Merrie”) Lowry as told by Mary in her book, The Merry Cricket.

From The Merry Cricket.

As one of the most sought-after veterinarians in the entire countryside, [Grampa Sweet's] practice often took him to some spot near our farm, always to our delight. However, as he had a large farm of his own to work when not out taking care of sick livestock, he could seldom stay long.

Jauntily climbing down from the half-cart, half-buggy in which he made his professional calls, he greeted us all cheerily and gave mother a warm embrace.

This day grampa was in more of a hurry than usual to get back to his farm. His bull, a huge and vicious animal that he kept on a chain in the barn, had been acting up that morning. He was the only one who could do anything with it.

Reluctant to see him go, we all walked out to the road with him. Then, just as he was about to slap his horse with the reins as a signal for it to start rambling off, he suddenly sat up straight, looked at Carrie and me, rubbed his chin thoughtfully and asked if Carrie and I couldn’t go home with him and stay over. We clamored so eagerly mother smilingly consented.

This was a treat, and to make it still more of a treat, grampa let Carrie take the reins and drive us. In truth, the horse knew the way better than Carrie. But he was an amiable animal. Knowing that grampa must have turned the reins over to one of us girls, and sensing that it might be fun to step lively, he picked up his feet and whisked us home smartly.

There were always things to look forward to at grampa’s. There would be wonderful things to eat which pretty Gramma Sweet would prepare especially to delight us. There were strange books to browse over in grampa’s cluttered little office, treatises on animal husbandry with fascinating pictures of sick cows and spavined horses.

And there would be things which grampa would think up for us to do which were always exciting, as the expedition on which he took us that night after dinner.

“Come girls,” he said, when it was dark, “you can help me, I think. This is a good night for it. There’s been a lot of rain lately and the ponds are swollen. Then he filled his lantern, lit it, found a big corn knife, winked at us conspiratorially, and told us to follow him.

We trotted to keep up with him as he walked briskly to a marshy pond not too far from the house. It was a noisy night: the frogs were making such a din we could hardly hear ourselves think. When grampa reached the spot where their croaking was loudest and most distinct he held his lantern down close to the edge of the pond, flicked his knife back and forth and picked up one fat bullfrog after the other, dropping them into our bags. The light blinded them, he explained, and made it easy to stun them with the flat of the blade.

Since it didn’t take long to bag all we could carry, we got back to the house in time for him to cut off the hind legs of the biggest and fattest frogs to gramma to skin and wash them before we went to bed.

A heaping plate full of these was given us the next morning for breakfast. Fried in fresh-churned butter, they were the most deliciously-flavored, finely-textured, white meat anyone had ever tasted.

Cora Isabelle Tapscott

Family of Richard and Cora

The book, The Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley, is coming along, albeit very, very slowly. One problem is the sheer number of individuals covered. Henry the Traveler, who founded the Wabash Valley clan, has 199 descendants with 155 spouses through 4 generations, which is as far as this book goes. The earlier book, Henry the Immigrant, covered only 132 descendants of Ann Edney (both Tapscotts and Georges) with 122 spouses through 4 generations. While many of the Wabash Valley Tapscott men had few descendants (see “not good husband material” in blog of 28 Aug 2015), this was definitely not true of the women, One example is Cora Isabelle Tapscott, daughter of William and Mary Angeline (Wallace) Tapscott, who is the cause of multiple pages in the current book.

Born 21 May 1869 in Anderson Twp, Cora Isabelle (usually called “Bell” or “Belle”), had a brief childhood. Before age fifteen, she was married, on 1 Mar 1884, in Clark County. The groom, Richard Morgan Sweet, was twenty-two. Morgan, the name he always used, was one of fourteen children of Mary Ellen Johnson and Austin Sweet Sr., a Clark County veterinarian and farmer.

Richard Morgan and Cora Isabelle
Sweet, at Martinsville home, c1932.
 (Courtesy of Sharon Poteet.)

Bell and Morgan, who lived all their married lives near Martinsville, wasted no time. Their first child, Ithamar, was born 29 Dec 1884, their last, Nila, was born 4 Apr 1908. In between were born twelve children, a child every two years.

On 23 Oct 1932, Bell Tapscott passed away. Morgan, who went from farmer to blacksmith in his later years, lived another few years, dying on 13 Apr 1937 at his daughter Nila’s house. Bell and Morgan are interred in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, in Martinsville Twp.