The Richard Tapscott Family– An Overview

This is, I hope, my last post on Richard Tapscott son of William the Preacher. Again, I would like to thank Frank Jarke, one of Richard’s descendants, for passing along some family history that helped unscramble Richard’s line. Frank is more knowledgeable than I am about many aspects of the family Nevertheless, I found a four things of interest (at least to me):

1. There are several comparatively well-researched trees on the internet covering some of Richard Tapscott’s descendants, but almost all fail to actually connect with Richard.

2. Although Richard had four children, only two — Kasiah and George — are known to have left descendants. (I apologize to those of you who have decided to use another of the several names found for Richard Tapscott’s only daughter, but nobody knows for certain what her name was meant to be. Most assuredly, illiterate Kasiah did not know.)

3. The descendants of Kasiah, which comprise the “Kasiah Line” ended up McLean County, Illinois, in and near the town of Bloomington. The George line, on the other hand, ended up in Putney County, Indiana, in and near the town of Greencastle. Of course, these families have spread out today. Nevertheless, their roots are in McLean and Putney counties and that is where extensive research must start.

4. There are, today, no descendants of Richard Tapscott bearing the family name “Tapscott,” unless they have acquired the name from another source. Richard had but one son with descendants, and that son had only daughters. That, of course, means that yDNA cannot be used to confirm descent from Richard.

I’ve barely made a start on the history of the Richard Tapscott line (though I did collect about 140 new sources), but I’m stopping here to return to my Wabash Valley Tapscotts, descendants of Richard's brother Henry. Others, more closely related to Richard, can carry on the investigation. Contact me if you would like a copy of my gedcom file or a register book file for this family. The information I’ve collected will eventually be made part of my tree “Descendants of Henry Tapscott the Immigrant” on Ancestry.com, but I am not planning anything in print.

The Greencastle Tapscotts

On 27 Nov 1873 in Casey County, Kentucky, Richard Tapscott’s youngest child, George W. Tapscott, born between 1850 and 1852, married Mary Martha Burton. Born 5 Jun 1856 in Pulaski County, Kentucky, Mary was a daughter of Ellis and Elizabeth (Waldon) Burton. Her father, Ellis, had died young of “bronchitis” in Sep 1869, just four years before Mary had married.

Bean Blossom Creek

About 1876, after the birth of their first known child, Cyntha, George and Mary pulled up stakes and headed to Monroe County, Indiana, settling in a township with the rather charming (or at least horticultural) sounding name of “Bean Blossom.” The family barely had time to settle in before George died—sometime between 1880, when he appears in the census, and around 1888, about the time that his widow married John H. King.

The Tapscott/King family ended up living near the town of Greencastle in Putnam County, Indiana, and the history of the descendants of Cyntha and Anna (and of Hazel) is closely tied with that community. Indeed, the Hoosier State Chronicles, a website providing Indiana newspapers, makes it exceedingly easy to uncover the family history, perhaps too easy, because one can become swamped with the abundance of information.

George left two daughters — Cyntha Elizabeth Tabscott and Anna Tabscott. Here the spelling “Tabscott” is used because that is the spelling the girls used. Indeed, there could have been founded a whole line of “Tabscotts” (as has occurred in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, for descendants of Warner Tapscott and Susanna Bishop) except that there were no male descendants to propagate the line. Extremely good evidence exists for the name “Cyntha” for the oldest girl, who was probably named after her grandmother Cyntha Followell, though she is almost always identified by others as “Cynthia” and almost always used only the name “Elizabeth” or “Lizzie.” Mary Martha (Tapscott) King went on to have one more child, Hazel, a child of John King.

Greencastle newspaper articles hint that Annie may have been unconventional, someone who, in other eras, would have been termed a "free spirit," a "nonconformist," or a “hippie.” Perhaps it was too much for her mother and stepfather, for a 1892 local newspaper reported that (for reasons unexplained)

“Dr. Braisher … adopted Miss Anna Tabscott ... She will make that her future home.” 

A newspaper article reported that on 14 Feb 1894 Annie married an “Ab [Abner?] Parrish.” She was only fourteen at the time, and the highly questionable marriage was probably annulled. Subsequent records show her only with her birth name “Tabscott,” never as “Parrish.” Then on 22 Mar 1895 she gave birth to a son, whose name was simply reported as “Tabscott” in the birth record, which lists no father. When Anna married Daniel Ross Burks, a life-long resident of Greencastle, on 16 Dec 1898, her presumably illegitimate son, Harold, was given the name “Harold R. Burks” (claimed by some to be “Harold Ross Burks”). After her marriage, Annie had a second son, Clyde Washington Burks. Married three times, Harold R. had no known children. Clyde, on the other hand, left descendants.

Annie Tabscott’s older sister, Cyntha, married Henry Alba Paris and had eight known children, all boys, with the exception of Edith, who died young. There are today a multitude of Paris descendants in Indiana, few, if any, realizing their connection with Richard Tapscott.

Kasiah/Kissiah/Kesiah Tapscott

Permission for “Keziah” Miles to marry Abraham Followell shows the likely source of Kasiah
 Tapscott’s name.  Family Search. Thanks to Chris Summers for bringing this to my attention.

Born between 1842 and 1845 (probably closer to 1842), Richard Tapscott’s only daughter appears in censuses with three given names “Kasiah,” “Kissiah,” and “Kesiah,” all known, though not common, appellations. I have arbitrarily chosen to use the name “Kasiah,” which is found for her in two different contemporary sources. It is likely that she was named after her maternal grandmother Keziah S. (Miles) Followay, and that the spelling was confused. After all, her father and mother were both illiterate (as was Kasiah).

In the 1860 census, she is found at age 17 in two different Marion County, Kentucky, households — that of her stepfather, Christian Weatherman, where she is named “Kasiah Weatherman” (possibly due to an error by the census enumerator) and that of Garrett (“Garit”) Vandike, where she is named “Kasiah Tapcot.”

Ten years later, in 1870, “Kesiah Tabscott” was living in Marion County with two children, 1-year old “Cynthian” (probably meant to be “Cyntha”) and 5-year-old “Mary E.” — two girls with the last name “Tabscott,” Kasiah’s maiden name. Descendants have passed down the story that Mary E. (“Mary Elizabeth Tapscott”) was the illegitimate daughter of Kasiah and a “Garret Van Diner.” It is very likely that the name was actually “Garrett Vandike,” that of the farmer with whom Kasiah was living at the time of the 1860 census.

It may be that a live-in servant, possibly Kasiah’s function, was just too tempting for a 60-year-old man (Garrett’s approximate age when Mary was born). Did Kasiah’s other child, Cyntha, have the same origin? Perhaps, though it is difficult to imagine that Vandike could have continued a relationship over a period of four years, for he had a wife, Sarah F., and five known children, to monitor his actions. And, of course, we have no proof that Garrett was the father.

What is particularly interesting about this tale is that in 1870, Kasiah had a roommate, 32-year-old Mary Emeline Atwood, the niece of Kasiah’s stepfather Christian Weatherman. Christian’s sister, Sarah, had married John Atwood in North Carolina, and following the birth of the first three children (James, Mary Emeline, and John W.), the family traveled to Kentucky (around 1850), presumably with Christian. In 1870 Mary Emeline was living with Kasiah, and she also had children with her — William N., Laura A., Mary E., and Sarah A., all four born between 1860 and 1868. That they bore the last name “Atwood” indicates that they too may have been born out of wedlock. Two single women living together with apparent offspring. Could the two have been banished by their families? Could all the children have been fathered by… but, no, it seems unfair to place suspicion on Garrett once more. Or is it? DNA results could help unravel the mystery.

By 1880, Kasiah’s two children were living in Casey County with others — Mary Elizabeth as a servant in the household of Robert L. King (probably a relative, but not a brother, of her future husband, Samuel Franklin King) and Cyntha with her first cousin once removed on the Followell side (see post of 25 Apr 2016). The oldest (William) and youngest (Sarah) of Mary Emeline Atwood’s children were living with their grandparents, John and Sarah Atwood. Kasiah, Mary Emeline, and Mary Emeline’s two other children are nowhere to be found, nor are they seen again. It seems like a lot of people to have passed away around the same time, if that is what happened.

Kasiah’s youngest child, Cyntha, had a similar fate. After 1880, she disappeared. But Cyntha’s sister, Mary Elizabeth Tapscott (or “Tabscott,” as usually named) lived a long, complex, and exceedingly interesting life, the subject of the next post.

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.

The Preacher’s Family

We know what happened to Henry, the oldest of William’s children. He traveled to Clark County, founding the Wabash Valley Tapscotts, and is the subject of an upcoming book (I hope). But what of his siblings - Winifred, William, George, and Richard?

Winifred, whose life has been difficult to unravel, deserves a posting of her own, and she has it (23 Aug 2014).

With no land, little inheritance, and only memories of an impecunious, motherless life to hold them in Green county, William’s three youngest sons, William Stewart, George Rice, and Richard, moved to nearby Casey County, living along Martins and Brush creeks.

George, who married Rachel Coffman, last appears at age 74 in the 1880 census for Casey County, where he lived out his life. Some of his descendants went to Illinois, but not near Clark County. A number are interred in the Tapscott Cemetery near Martin’s Creek.

William, who also remained in Casey County, Kentucky, married Rhoda Jane Coppage, and died young, killed by a falling tree at age 50. A number of his descendants also ended up in Illinois, but there are still a large number in Kentucky.

Richard married Cyntha Followell and moved to Marion County, Kentucky. It is said that he died there in 1855, but no reliable evidence has been presented. Cyntha remarried on 4 Oct 1859. Little is known of Richard’s descendants, primarily because little family history research has been done for that line.

The Traveler, Childhood

Lately we have been spending a lot of time on relatively recent Wabash Valley Tapscotts, but we may have failed to lay a good foundation for these recent folks – for Carl, and Golden Arthur, Nellie Mae and Wesley, and dear old Samuel. Off and on I will do so.

Our story of the Wabash Valley Tapscotts really starts with Henry Tapscott the Traveler, son of William the Preacher. His Virginia birth, North Carolina childhood, Kentucky maturation, Indiana residence, and Illinois adulthood provide us with a designation to distinguish him from a multitude of other Henry Tapscotts (eighteen by the latest count, not including many others with the middle name “Henry”), descendants of the Traveler’s great, great grandfather “Henry the Immigrant,” the subject of many postings).

William the Preacher's Green County home lay alongside
Robinson Creek (now in Taylor County) (2013).

The Traveler was born in 1797 or 1798 to William Tapscott and, possibly, Winifred Cobb. We say “possibly” because William’s wife died relatively young and no proof has been found for her name, a situation discussed in great detail in my book Henry the Immigrant (see post of 13 Aug 2013). At the time of Henry’s birth, his parents were living in Caswell County, North Carolina; however, three U.S. censuses give his birthplace as Virginia. That Caswell County lies near the Virginia border and that Henry’s parents had come from Virginia make that state a plausible birthplace. Henry’s mother could have returned there for his birth.

Henry, the oldest, had three brothers, George Rice, William Stewart, and Richard, and a sister, Winifred, all born in North Carolina or Virginia. After the birth of Richard, William Sr. pulled up stakes and headed with his offspring for Kentucky, arriving by 1812, probably as a widower. There William worked as a preacher, supplementing his scant income with hardscrabble farming.

William the Preacher settled along meandering Robinson Creek in Green County. (Today that site lies in Taylor County). There his five children, including our Henry, had what was probably a motherless upbringing by an impecunious, itinerant cleric, in an uncultured backcountry, which provided little opportunity or need for schooling. The Preacher could read and write, or at least sign his name. His sons could not.

Trip

Traveling through Kentucky and North Carolina researching Tapscotts. Spent two days at the Kentucky Dept for Libraries and Archives. Great place and I may have to go back for a week. They have every record from every county on microfilm, but almost nothing on the internet. Spent two days in Daviess County KY, where William Tapscott, son of Capt. Henry, lived. Mary Frances and I are now in Glasgow KY, our location for the next three full days for exploring Barren, Green, and Casey counties (and a little of Allen). My GGG grandfather, William the Preacher, spent his later life in Green. Henry, his son, my GG grandfather, spent his childhood in Green and married there, then moved to Barren for a few years around 1830, before going on to Indiana and then Illinois. Three of William's sons (William Stewart, George Rice, and Richard) moved to Casey County from Green. Richard later went to Marion County KY. I'll let you know what I find on this trip when I have a chance to digest it and look at my notes.

DNA match

Tracing the descendants of Henry of Caswell has led to a problem. There are primary and good secondary sources showing that William Tapscott, who fought in the Revolutionary War and who went to Kentucky was a son of Henry of Caswell. However, no good sources show who William's children are. It is assumed that Tapscotts who settled near William (Henry, William Stewart, George Rice, Richard, and Winifred) were his children, but there are no good sources naming these people. (From then on, things once more get easier.) Today, I obtained some good, though not great, evidence that at the very least Henry Tapscott (of Kentucky) and William Stewart Tapscott were brothers. An Ancestry.com DNA shows that a GGG Granddaughter of William Stewart Tapscott and I, a GG Grandson of Henry of Kentucky, have a 95 percent chance of being 4th to 6th cousins. Her genealogy and mine shows a relationship of 4th cousins, once removed. Now if I could only get past William, to Henry of Caswell for a dna match I would have evidence of William's children, not just that two Tapscotts believed to be his children are probably brothers. I have sent an email to William Stewart Tapscott's descendant with the DNA match.