The Enigmatic Sweitzers, Chapter 2

Our last post reported that the Darwin Twp neighbors Elizabeth (Tapscott) Sweitzer and Timothy A. Harmon traveled 200 miles to the tiny hamlet of Markle, Indiana, for their 8 Mar 1887 marriage and we asked “Why”? And how could two of Timothy’s daughters, who came along, meet their future mates and marry them in such short order?

But there is a much greater mystery. Just a little over four months after his second marriage, Timothy was married a third time, on 20 Jul 1887, in Sodus Twp, Berrien County, Michigan, 140 miles north of Markle. The bride was Mary E. (McGoldrick) Adair Sink, a widow who had outlived two previous husbands.

How in the world could Timothy have dissolved his marriage to Elizabeth, traveled to Berrien County, and met, wooed, and married Mary in just four months? And why would he have done so? Timothy’s father, George, had died in Tuscarawas County in 1836 and his widowed mother and at least four of her children had ended up in Berrien County. Moreover Mary McGoldrick’s second husband was Henry Sink, one of the Tuscarawas County Sinks. But these connections do not explain the rapid failure of Timothy and Elizabeth’s marriage and the rapid completion of Timothy’s following marriage.

You might ask, is there any possibility that we have somehow mixed different Timothys and Elizabeths? The answer is “No.” The evidence is irrefutable (see figure).

Part of the "irrefutable proof" is that the Huntington County marriage record correctly gives Timothy's parents as "Geo." and

"Elizabeth Thomas" and Elizabeth's parents as "Henry Tabscott" and "Susan Bass." Moreover, Elizabeth's name from her first

marriage is given as "Switzer."

By 1900 Elizabeth, still bearing the name “Sweitzer,” but listed as a widow, was back in Clark County living in York Twp with her 26-year-old son Lyman, and residing next door to her son John W. Sweitzer. We last see Elizabeth in the 1910 census, still living with Lyman, but now in the town of Marshall. Then Elizabeth disappears.

Many people claim that Elizabeth (Tapscott) Sweitzer Harmon died in Cook County, Illinois, on 23 Aug 1927, a date found in twenty-five trees on Ancestry. Wrong Elizabeth Sweitzer. That was Elizabeth born 9 May 1860 and wife of Gerhart Sweitzer as a little investigation shows. Our Elizabeth likely died in Clark Co between the dates of the 1910 and 1920 census.

But our story does not end there. On 4 May 1892, the Clark County Herald published a list of the proceedings of the April 1892 court. Among the cases in the Chancery court was the following:

Elizabeth Sweitzer vs. Geo. Sweitzer, divorce; defendant defaults d. Decree pro confesso. Divorce granted complainant, who pays costs.

Is this our Elizabeth and George Sweitzer? It would seem so. I can find no other couple with those names who could have been living in Clark County at the time. But that would mean that George was still living and he and Elizabeth were still married at the time of Elizabeth’s marriage to Timothy Harmon five years earlier. That would certainly explain why the marriage was so short. It was illegal.

The term “Decree pro confesso” in the newspaper report meant that the defendant, George, made no answer to the bill and its allegation was therefore taken "as confessed." Of course, were George deceased at the time, he would have been unable to answer the bill, but, in this case there would have been no divorce granted. And at the time he was not deceased, as it turns out. From the Clark County Herald, 22 Nov 1900 is George's death announcement:

Walnut Prairie

Geo. Switzer, an aged man living one mile north of this place, died very suddenly last Thursday night [15 Nov]. He had been quite poorly for several weeks, but his friends did not realize that the close of his days was so near. He left a wife, four sons and one daughter to mourn the death of a loving husband and father.

The announcement fits George to a t. About seventy years old, he was "aged." Just north of Walnut Prairie is Darwin Twp, where George resided most of his adult life. And he had four sons and one daughter (eliminating "Allice," who is believed to have died young).

But our Sweitzer story has more mysteries and intrigues, one involving Elizabeth (Tapscott) Sweitzer’s son John W., the subject of our next blog.

The Enigmatic Sweitzers - Chapter 1

Born in July 1844, Elizabeth Tapscott was the youngest girl among Henry and Susan (Bass) Tapscott’s twelve known children. And she and her descendants present the most confusing conundrums and startling stories found for the Wabash Valley Tapscotts.

On 28 Oct 1858 in Clark County at age fourteen Elizabeth married George A. Sweitzer (“Switzer” in the marriage record), who was twice her age. The marriage may have been legal. Illinois law at the time stated "All male persons over the age of 17 years, and females over the age of 14 years, may contract and be joined in marriage; Provided, in all cases where either party is a minor, the consent of parents or guardians be first had..." On the other hand, the marriage record shows no indication of parental consent.

Born around 1829 in Ohio, to John and Elizabeth (Boyer) Switzer, George Sweitzer’ had grown up in Darwin Township, where Henry Tapscott and his family first settled. George’s family had arrived in Clark County around 1840, about the time that Henry Tapscott had arrived from Kentucky (via Indiana). George may have first met Elizabeth Tapscott when he was well into his teens and she was but a small child. George’s father had been born in Germany, and the family name, originally Schweitzer (“Swiss”), became “Sweitzer” and “Switzer” in America. Both Anglicized versions, often for the same person, are found in Clark County records for John’s descendants.

George and Elizabeth had six children, though one, Allice (yes, that is the spelling in the only known contemporary record) may have died young. After living for a while in Anderson Twp, the Sweitzers moved back to Darwin Twp, where George farmed.

In that same township lived the family of Timothy A. Harmon (sometimes “Harman”) and his wife, Julia Ann Sink. The family, which is said in the obituary of one of their daughters to have had sixteen children (though only nine are known), had moved from Ohio, to Indiana, and finally to Clark County, Illinois. It was there that Julia died on 12 Jul 1883, leaving behind Timothy and several, mostly grown children.

It would appear that George Sweitzer also passed on, for Elizabeth and her widowed neighbor Timothy moved to Markle, Indiana, a small village on the Wabash River, in both Huntington and Wells counties. The couple was married in Huntington County on 8 Mar 1887, with much older Timothy (born Jan 1826) knocking six years off his age in the record, either to fool Elizabeth or just onlookers. Timothy’s two youngest children accompanied (or joined) them and were also married in that area, Matilda T. Harmon to John H. Sink in Wells County in 1887 and Melissa Harmon to William H. Maddux in Huntington County on 18 May 1889. At least two of Timothy’s other children—George H. and Eliza Armenda—remained behind to live out their lives in Clark County, Illinois. Whether any of Elizabeth’s children came along is uncertain, but since Lyman was in his middle teens it seems likely.

Why did Timothy and Elizabeth move to the tiny town of Markle to get married? Markle was almost across the state of Indiana from Clark County. Neither Elizabeth nor Timothy had known relatives there. But the parents (Benjamin and Rosanna) of John Sink, Matilda’s new husband, had been married (on 4 Jan 1841) in Tuscarawas Co, Ohio, where Julia and Timothy Harmon had once lived. The probable presence of some of Julia’s relatives, however, seems an unlikely reason to travel to Markle.

A greater mystery is how Timothy’s daughters who came along, could have met their future spouses and married them in such short order? But things get much, much stranger, as we will see in our next blog.