John and William

Our last post said that we would take a look at Richard and Cyntha Tapscott’s children—William W., Kasiah, John W., and George W. Let's start with William and John.

Born between 1845 and 1846 in Kentucky, presumably in Casey County, John is by far the easiest to write about. He only appears once, with his parents in the 1850 census, and is never seen again. End of story.

The story of William, who as far as we know, never married, is a little longer. In 1860 he was living with his mother and her new husband, Christian Weatherman, in Marion County, Kentucky, under the name “William Weatherman.” Of course the name assignment may have just been an assumption by the census enumerator.

Morgan's Raiders

William may have been living in Marion when, on 5 Jul 1863, Morgan’s Raiders, a band of Confederates led by General John Hunt Morgan, passed through the county seat of Lebanon during a 1000-mile incursion into the North. Twenty buildings were burned and well over three hundred Union soldiers were captured (but then paroled). There is no indication that William took part in the War, but if he had, it would have almost certainly been in the Union Army. The relatively few descendants of William the Preacher who enlisted were all Unionists. None are known to have owned slaves (unlike the Preacher's ancestors).

By 1870, William was back in Casey, the next county over, living alone under his birth name (actually, as “Tabscott”), farming land not his own, and sharing the county with two other William Tapscotts — William Rice and William Wesley, son and grandson of William Stewart and Rhoda (Coppage) Tapscott. (Ten years earlier, we could have added William Stewart to the list of William Tapscotts of Casey County, but William Stewart Tapscott had died in March of 1860, killed by a falling tree.) Then William W. Tapscott disappears, presumably dying between 1870 and 1880, when he is missing from the census.

The stories of Richard’s other two children are considerably more interesting, and considerably more strenuous to research. Our next posting will look at Richard Tapscott’s only known daughter, Kasiah.

Richard and Cyntha

Born around 1810 or 1811, in Virginia according to him, but possibly in North Carolina, where the family was living at the time, Richard Tapscott was the youngest of William the Preacher and Winifred’s five children. He was barely a toddler when he traveled with his father (and mother?) around 1812 to Green County, Kentucky, living there (for the most part) until after 1837, when he appears in the tax list with 100 acres of land. He may have been out of the county around 1830, when his father and brother Henry appear in the census for Barren County. If so, he had returned by 1831.

Richard had a hard upbringing. William was an impecunious preacher man, who had little to give his children in the way of property or education. All of his sons were illiterate. When the Preacher died around Mar 1837, his estate brought only $63.13 to be divided among five (or six? See “Wesley,” 7 Jun 2015) children.

Richard Tapscott farmed along Brush Creek in Casey County (2013).

Following William’s death, Richard and two of his brothers, George Rice and William Stewart, moved to nearby Casey County. There, Richard farmed 100 acres along Brush Creek, giving him an opportunity to use the only thing he is known to have received from his father — a clevis and chain (harnessing equipment) that he had purchased at the Preacher’s estate sale for 63 cents. And there on 13 Feb 1840 he married Cyntha A. Followell (born 1817 – 1820). By 1853, Richard owned land in both Casey County (65 acres) and adjacent Marion County (65 acres), and by 1855, “Dick” Tapscott had 115 acres in just Marion County. But the following year’s Marion County tax list gives only “Cynthia” Tapscott as the property’s owner. Richard had died, leaving behind four young children, William W., Kasiah, John W., and George W. The oldest, William, was still a teenager; he youngest, George, was probably under six.

In Casey County on 4 Oct 1859 widowed Cyntha married a somewhat younger Christian Weatherman. Born in North Carolina to Cornelius Weatherman and Catharine Runager around 1825, give or take a couple of years, Christian had moved to Kentucky in the 1850s.

Apparently the marriage was short-lived, as were Cyntha and Christian. Neither appears in any document after the 1860 census. Their fate is unknown. No burial site is known, no death record has been found. It does not help that on 5 Jul 1863 Morgan's Raiders burned the Marion County clerk's office destroying its contents.

Our next post takes a look at some of the children.

Richard Tapscott and the Followells

A post of 15 Nov 2015, about William the Preacher’s children (Henry, Winifred, George, William, and Richard), noted that “Little is known of Richard’s descendants, primarily because little family history research has been done for that line.” It also didn’t help that the boys were illiterate (giving rise to name spelling problems and a scarcity of records) and poor (making informative wills unnecessary). Three weeks ago, I received an email from Frank Jarke, a descendent of Richard Tapscott.  Frank, a family historian and the first of Richard’s successors to contact me, filled me in on what he knew of Richard’s descendants. I immediately took another look at Richard and found that I could not stop, even though it pulled me away from my primary interest (the Wabash Valley Tapscotts) and turned me into a temporary recluse (explaining my seeming absence for the last few weeks). Frank’s providing some badly needed starting points has produced some new Tapscott history. Today we take a look at the parentage of Richard’s wife. Additional history will be found in future posts.

Contemporary records show that Richard married “Sintha Followay” in Casey County on 13 Feb 1840. Richard’s wife was actually Cyntha Followell, though neither he nor she would have known of the spelling error in their marriage record, both being illiterate. “Cyntha,” a rather common Kentucky name of the period, rather than “Cynthia,” assumed by many Tapscott family historians, is probably correct, since “Cyntha” or the homophone “Sintha” is found in most contemporary sources.

The 1870 census, which shows Cyntha’s granddaughter, “Syntha” Tapscott, living with her “cousin” “Margret” and Thomas Cox, provided the lead needed to unravel Cyntha’s origins. Margaret Cox’s mother, was Paulina McAnally (or “McAnelly”). Paulina, also illiterate, is named in records as “Linna,” “Linny,” “Linney,” “Lidia,” “Mary,” and “Malinda,” in addition to “Paulina” (which is found only once). The first three designations may be nicknames for Paulina. The source of the others is unknown, though Paulina may have had a sister named “Malinda.”

The discovery of the “cousin” designation was followed by the uncovering of a deed for heirs of Abraham Followell that named Cyntha and Richard Tapscott; a marriage bond giving Paulina’s father as Abraham Followell; and death certificates for two of her children showing Paulina’s maiden name to be Followell. A little more work made it apparent that Cyntha and Paulina were daughters of Abraham Followell and his wife Keziah Miles. “Syntha” Tapscott, Cyntha Followell’s granddaughter, was actually a first cousin once removed of Margaret Cox. (Why the granddaughter had the last name “Tapscott” is a future story.) This is shown in the accompanying, greatly abbreviated, chart (contact me for sources and details).

Abraham and Keziah were residents of Washington County, Kentucky, an area with several Followell families. Married in that county on 18 May 1802, the couple raised ten or so kids along Rolling Fork Creek, becoming residents of Marion County when it was created from Washington County, 25 Jan 1834. Abraham, Keziah, and the other Followells did not change locations, but their lands did. Around Apr 1853 Abraham died in Casey County, the next county over, where their daughter Cyntha and son-in-law Richard Tapscott were raising four children. The administrator of the estate was Moses Coppage, probably the step grandson of Winifred (Tapscott) Mann, Richard Tapscott's sister (See post of 23 Aug 2014. A Moses Coppage was a grandchild of Joseph Mann from his first marriage.). We find no record of Keziah’s death, but the account of her husband’s estate sale shows that she was still living at the time of Abraham’s death.