Wabash Valley Tapscotts - Susan Frances Sanders

No. I haven’t died. It’s just that my new book, Henry’s Children, The Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley, is becoming considerably longer and more complex than anticipated.

Six children of Henry Tapscott the Traveler (the child of William the Preacher) and their descendants—William, John, James Wesley, Thomas, Nancy, and Jacob—have been covered. Bringing us to child seven, Sarah Ann Tapscott, wife of William M. Sanders, and that is a problem. For Sarah Ann and William had eight children, many of whom had several children. And generally there is too much information about Sarah and William’s descendants, not too little—too much to read, record, and digest. But there are still two unknowns, which Tapscott Family History readers might help me answer. And both involve Susan Frances Sanders, daughter of William and Sarah Ann.

Susan Frances is believed to have married Robert Jones in Marion County, Indiana, on 3 Sep 1873, but the sole evidence is a single marriage record with Susan F. Sanders as the bride and let’s face it, “Susan F. Sanders” is not an unusual name. And nothing is known of the origin or ending of Robert Jones.

And on 8 Feb 1877, just a little over three years after she may have married Robert Jones, Susan Frances Sanders is known to have married Joseph Shade in Clark County, Illinois. But Joseph’s first wife was Ada Swafford, about whom, like Robert Jones, we know absolutely nothing, other than that she married Joseph in Clark County on 1 Dec 1874.

Does anyone know anything reliable about Robert Jones of Marion County, Indiana, or Ada Swafford of Clark County, Illinois? Any chance we have a name wrong?

Wesley's Wall

The blog of 7 Jun 2015 promised that investigation of the mysterious Wesley Tapscott would continue during our June trip to Missouri and Illinois, in hopes of demolishing or at least fracturing the “brick wall” separating us from knowledge of Wesley’s parentage. Here are the new things found (with just a little repetition for continuity).

On 29 Nov 1889 Wesley purchased 20 acres of land in Anderson Twp from Clark H. Hammond and his wife, Roxana, for $100, an amount higher than what Wesley would be expected to have had. A plat map shows that by 1892, Wesley had acquired an adjacent 20 acres from an unknown source. Most of Wesley Tapscott’s 40 acres was considerably flatter than the neighboring 80 acres owned by Henry the Traveler’s oldest son William Tapscott (my great grandfather). Cut through by the Auburn Branch of Mill Creek, William’s farm was an assembly of ravines with scarcely any cultivatable land. Wesley had acquired some acceptable farm land. But he was probably too sick to make much use of it.

 

Tapscott lands in Anderson and Auburn Townships. Mill Creek Reservoir is a modern addition.

On 16 Aug 1893, sensing the end, Wesley wrote his last will and testimony:

   I Wesley Tapscott of Anderson Township County of Clark and State of Illinois do make this my last will and testament.

   First it is my will that any just debts against me be paid out of my estate.

    I then give and bequeath all of the residue of my personal property of whatever kind and moneys, also a debt due me from David Birchfield of ten dollars for which I have no note to Joseph Shade and his heirs.

   I hereby appoint and make Joseph Shade executor of this my last will and testament.

   Signed and sealed the sixteenth day of August A. D. 1893.

       Wesley {his X mark} Tapscott

 Witnesses

James L Coon [?]

John N. Washburn

John M Coons

          The will shows the last name “Tapscott,” rather than “Tabscott,” the spelling used on most of Wesley’s documents. But being illiterate, Wesley had no idea how his name was spelled or should be spelled. Spelling was left to those doing the writing. The Army thought his name was spelled “Tabscott,” and that was the name used in Wesley’s numerous military, medical, and Soldier and Sailor Home records. Most others used the customary spelling “Tapscott,” and that is the name found on all but two of his probate records and on his grave marker.

Two of the will’s witnesses were “John Washburn, a 33-year-old railroad worker living in Clark County’s Wabash Twp., and John Coons, a merchant living in Auburn Twp. The name of the other witness appears to be “James L. Coon,” a young laborer living in Martinsville Twp. Their connection with Wesley is unknown. Joseph Shade, the will’s only beneficiary, was the son-in-law of Sarah Ann Tapscott, one of the Traveler’s five daughters.

Soldiers and Sailors Home brick “cottage” (2015).

The following year Wesley went to the Illinois Soldiers and Sailors Home in Quincy, Illinois, listing his next-door neighbor in Clark County, William Tapscott, as his contact. Mary Frances and I visited the institution. The facility is still used (though the name has been changed to the “Illinois Veterans Home”) and many of the early buildings still stand. Residents were housed in two-story brick buildings termed “cottages” to bring a feeling of “Home” to the facility. The Home was built in 1886 and the first resident was admitted on 3 Mar 1887, just seven years before Wesley’s arrival on 30 May 1894. Lying on the Mississippi River, Quincy was a stop on the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy (CB&Q) railway, which had a depot on the northern edge of the home, and this may be how Wesley arrived.

Wesley stayed in the Home only a few months, returning to Marshall, Illinois, where he died on 21 Nov 1894, willing all his personal property to Joseph Shade, who likely ended up with nothing but a headache. Wesley left more debts than assets. What happened to his 40 acres is still undetermined, but the land was likely sold before his death.

Thus after searching for hours in the Clark County Courthouse, the Clark County Genealogy Library, and the Marshall Public Library and visiting the Illinois Soldiers and Sailors Home, we still know little about Wesley’s origins. We know from where he came, but not from who. And, though he came from Green County, Kentucky, the home of William the Preacher, perhaps he is not a Tapscott after all, or at least not the son of a male Tapscott. His name may have come from an NPE, a non-paternal event - a name change, an illegitimate birth, an adoption, The brick wall remains.

Wesley

Wesley Tapscott grave marker, Auburn Cemeter

Most family history books have a good mystery, what some call a “brick wall.” With my last book, Henry the Immigrant, Robert Francis Tapscott provided the mystery (see posts of 26 Jul 2014 and 15 Jan 2015). For the book now in writing, Henry the Traveler, The Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley, it is Wesley Tabscott, of unknown parentage (see blog of 16 Nov 2014).

I now have copies of Wesley’s 12-page probate file from the Clark County, Illinois, courthouse, his 63-page Civil War pension file from the National Archives and Records Administration, and his 4-page Illinois Soldiers and Sailors Home file from the Illinois State Archives. It is amazing that these 79 pages of documents provide no smoking gun. Let me summarize the findings from these and Wesley's very few other records.



Sailors and Soldiers Home Application provides Birth information.

Except on his grave marker, Wesley’s name was always spelled “Tabscott,” likely because he was totally illiterate. He claimed to have been born on 28 Sep 1829 in Green County, Kentucky, and is known to have died 21 Nov 1894 in Marshall, Illinois. Of course a birth date given by an illiterate person is questionable, In fact his age on a Civil War muster role indicates a birth year of 1840 rather than 1829.  Wesley appears in not a single census, at least with that name, despite the fact that according to his medical records, excluding time in the military and in the Soldier;s home he was living in or near Anderson Township in Clark County as early as 1856 (about the year that Henry and Susan (Bass) Tapscott arrived from Darwin Twp. in Clark County). He served two stints in the Civil War as a Union Army private with the 133^rd Indiana Infantry (17 May 1864 to 5 Sep 1864) and with the 149^th Indiana Infantry (2 Mar 1865 to 11 Jul 1865), enlisting both times at Terre Haute, Indiana. He took sick at the end of his last enlistment at Decatur Alabama, ending up in a hospital in Huntsville Alabama, where he was discharged from the Army. Extensive medical records show that he lived the rest of his life primarily in Clark County as a near invalid with an assortment of nasty physical conditions. He resided in the Illinois Soldiers and Sailors Home (an institution for disabled, ill, and elderly military personal in Quincy Illinois) 30 May 1894 to 30 Oct 1894. He then discharged himself and returned to Marshall, where he died less than a month later, apparently in poverty. At his death he had personal property consisting of household goods and horse and buggy with a total value of $100, but with debts of $211.65, much of it for care during his final days.

Not a single word appears in any record about Wesley’s parents; however, many documents give the following Clark County Tapscotts and their relatives as Wesley's witnesses and contacts, but without mentioning their connection with him --- William Riley Tapscott, William Sanders (widower of Sarah Ann Tapscott), William Sanders's daughter Susan Shade, and William Sander’s son-in-law Joseph Shade. Joseph Shade was named Wesley’s executor. That Wesley was born in Green County Kentucky shows that he was almost certainly a descendent of the Tapscotts of Virginia, but there are four possibilities.

1. He was an unknown child of Henry the Traveler, coming with Henry and Susan during their trip from Kentucky to Clark County, but not appearing in the 1850 census, which has been thought to list all of Henry’s children. If born in 1929, Wesley would have been around age 21 at the time and could have easily been away from home when the census was taken. But all of Henry’s children were literate, why would Wesley have been illiterate? Moreover, Henry and his wife, Susan, had a child, John, born 9 Mar 1829, a date conflicting with Wesley’s birth date of 28 Sep 1829. Of course birthdates are often incorrect.

2. He was actually James W. (“Wesley”?) Tapscott, a child of Henry the Traveler, born around 1830 or 1831 and dying sometime after 1870. We have very little information about James who appears in 1850 and 1870 censuses for Clark County. James, like Wesley, never married (as far as we know). But the two censuses do not indicate that James was illiterate. And if Wesley were James, why would be appear as “Wesley Tabscott” in everything militarily connected, but nowhere else? Moreover, Wesley is known to have been alive when the estate Henry the Traveler's son John was being settled in 1872, but, unlike most (but not all) of John's siblings, was not mentioned as an heir.

3. He could have been a child of William the Preacher, born late in William’s life. That might explain Wesley’s illiteracy. None of William the Preacher’s sons were literate. (Note, however, that Wesley was very young at the time of William's death and the Preacher's apparent lack of belief in education for his children should have had little effect on Wesley.) He might have been a son of William’s wife, (believed to be) Winifred Cobb. Winifred, were she still living, would have been around age 50 give or take a few years at the time of Wesley’s birth, unlikely but not impossible. Wesley could, in fact, have been the cause of the demise of Winifred, who was dead by 1830. And he could be a product of another relationship. It is interesting that William the Preacher’s household in the 1830 census contains one child, whom we cannot identify, aged under 5 (Wesley?), and also a woman aged 20 to 30 (a new consort?). The census also shows other unidentifiable household members. Wesley would have been only seven years old when William the Preacher died and could have accompanied his older brother Henry the Traveler to Clark County.

4. And Wesley could have been a descendant of Raleigh and Judith (Stanton) Tapscott, who were living in Barren County Kentucky, essentially next door to Green County) at the time of Wesley’s birth. Raleigh, William the Preacher’s 2^nd cousin, had a massive number of known Kentucky-born grandkids and undoubtedly many others never unidentified.

Right now I am leaning toward possibility 3. In another week I will be in Illinois researching Tapscotts, one of them Wesley. Perhaps land records will help. I might note that Pamela Loos-Noji at Kinwork Connections, Email: kin1889@me.com, www.kinworkconnections.com, did an outstanding and very reasonably priced job of getting Wesley’s pension files. She has worked for me in the past and is always thorough, efficient, and highly knowledgeable. I recommend her highly for genealogical research. If anyone would like digital copies of the contents of Wesley’s Pension, Illinois Soldiers and Sailors Home, and Probate files, I’ll be glad to email them to you.