Wright Family Gathering

In 2002 a c1922 photo of a collection of individuals including some Tapscotts was loaned to me for scanning by my cousin Dolores (Tingley) Berbaum (daughter of Nellie (Tapscott) Tingley). On Monday, August 29, 2016, I posted the photo, which I labeled “Tapscott Family Gathering,” and attempted to identify some of those present. The posting was only partially correct. The date was indeed 1922 and some Tapscotts are present, but it was brought to my attention by Gail Ann (Reed) Schenck that the gathering was probably initiated by or for Nicholas Reed and his wife Mary Malinda (also “Melinda”) Wright (daughter of Rev Richard Wright, see post of 17 Aug 2017), likely at their home in Auburn Twp, Clark County. Since it now appears that all were Wright descendants or their spouses, I have chosen to label the photo "Wright Family Gathering" Gail believes the purpose may have been to celebrate Mary Malinda and Nick Reed's wedding anniversary.

Since Mary Malinda was the aunt of Edna Earl Wright, who married John Wesley Tapscott, Tapscotts are found in the photo. And since Mary Malinda’s first husband (who died very young, aged 31) was Eli Sylvester Shade, Shades also attended. And, of course, Reeds, who may have hosted the gathering, are there since Mary Melinda's second marriage was with Nicholas Reed. Gail (great granddaughter of Nicholas and Mary Malinda), Patrick (“Pat”) Shade (great grandson of Eli Sylvester and Mary Malinda), and I (grandson of John Wesley and Edna) have identified individuals in the photo about whom we have some certainty and the results are shown below. The earlier, inaccurate, and incomplete posting has been removed.

Wright family gathering, autumn 1922. Where possible, numbers are placed on the person designated. Otherwise, the number is placed immediately above that person. 1. Glenn Daniel Tapscott, 2. Lillie Alice Tapscott, 3. Alta Leona (Tapscott) Hiddle, 4. Edmund Hiddle Jr., 5. Edna Earl (Wright) Tapscott, 6. John Wesley Tapscott, 7. Nicholas Reed, 8. Mary Malinda (Wright) Reed, 9. Lee Arthur Reed, 10. Irene (Leggett) Reed, 11. Clark Nicholas (“Nick”) Reed, 12. Jean Arthur Reed, 13. Agnes Maurine Reed, 14. William Hartford  (“Cap”) Shade, 15. Mariah Mae (Hurst) Shade, 16. Edna’s mother Elizabeth J. (Lowry) Wright, 17. Clifford Lloyd Tapscott, 18. Elizabeth Shade, 19. Burns (“Pat”) Shade, 20. Robert Dean Shade, 21. Sylvester Shade, 22. Anna Mae (Reed) Veach, 23. Ernest Eugene Shade.

Connection between people identified in the photo (in red). Many family members have been omitted.

The photo may have been widely distributed when it was made. Copies have been found in possession of members of the Reed, Shade, and Tapscott families. In 1978, Nellie (Tapscott) Tingley, a daughter of John Wesley and Edna (Wright) Tingley (and my aunt), sent a letter to Sylvester Shade, who appears in the photo. The letter, made available by Pat Shade, mentions the photo:

I also have one of the pictures of the reunion at Uncle Nick Reed's. I wasn't there, but Mother and Father, my oldest sister Alta and her husband Edmund Hiddle, Lillie Kuhn, who was a Tapscott then, Glenn and Lloyd were there in the picture.

Thanks to Gail for bringing the connection to the Reeds to my attention and to both Pat and Gail for helping research this photo. Thanks to Pat's uncles Sylvester Shade, who made a list of everyone present with their photo location, and Edgar ("Ed") Shade, we now have identifications for most or all of the people in the photo. Since they are, indeed, all descendants of Rev. Richard Wright or spouses of those descendants, the photo with everyone identified is being put on a new blog site, the Wrights of the Wabash Valley (http://wabashvalleywrights.blogspot.com/), post of Wednesday May 10, 2017.

Uncle Dickie

Rev. Richard Wright

Rev. Richard Wright, c1865
(courtesy of Patrick Joseph Shade)

We have spoken of Rev. Richard Wright, father of Isaiah Grant Wright, believed to have been the biological father of Grant Frederick Tapscott [posting of 5 Dec 2015]. It turns out that Richard, often referred to as "Uncle Dickie," was also the grandfather of Edna Earl Wright, wife of John Wesley Tapscott, a grandson of Henry the Traveler.

Thus, Uncle Dickie will remain a subject for discussion in this Tapscott Family blog. But more and more information about Rev. Wright is emerging, and he needs a space of of his own. A new series of postings on the "Wrights of the Wabash Valley" will soon appear in a separate blog.

Grant Frederick Tapscott

Our previous post (30 Nov 2015) told of Joseph and Mary Emma (Sanders) Tapscott, but the story was incomplete (as all stories must be). When Mary Emma married Joseph, she already had a son and therein lies a most interesting tale.

Grant Frederick Tapscott (collection of Patricia Phillips).

On 3 Oct 1884 in Clark County’s Anderson Twp, Mary Emma gave birth to a child, Grant Frederick, who took the last name “Tapscott” when his mother married Joseph Tapscott, three years later. No original birth record has been found for Grant Tapscott; however, in 1949, decades after his birth and years after the deaths of his claimed parents, he obtained a delayed record of birth, giving Joseph as his father. The birth date of 3 Oct 1884 on that record is a little suspicious considering that Joseph and Mary Emma were married 3 Oct 1887. Could it be that Grant did not know his actual birth date and picked 3 Oct because it was a familiar date? Perhaps, though 3 Oct 1887 date does agree with census data.

Who then was Grant Tapscott’s biological father? One of Grant’s children stated that her “Aunt Edith” [Edith Mae (Tapscott) Bruner] told her that her father's real father was a Wright. And a grandchild relates that "...my mom always told me that Grant Wright's father would not let him marry Mary Emma Sanders. I believe she said that the Wright family was more well to do than the Sanders family and Grant Wright also felt he was too young to marry.” Were this the only evidence for Grant Tapscott’s actual father, conclusions would be questionable. One document, however, the record of Grant Tapscott’s 1905 marriage to Lena Clouse, gives his father’s name as “Grant Wright.” Given this document and the family tales, it is likely that Grant Tapscott’s biological father was a person named “Grant Wright.”

Part of Grant Tapscott and Lena Clouse marriage record.

And who was Grant Wright? Only one person by that name is found in Clark County, Illinois, at the time in question—Isaiah Grant Wright (who went only by “Grant” in his youth), son of Richard and Joanna (also “Joan,” “Joann, “Johanna”) Wright. Richard, a prominent Methodist Protestant clergyman and part-time farmer, resided just southeast of the town of Auburn (Clark Center) and two or three miles northwest of the Anderson Twp farm of Mary Emma’s family. Born in 1863 or 1864, Grant Wright was just three or four years older than Mary Emma.

Was Isaiah Grant Wright the biological father of Grant Frederick Tapscott? Probably. The name is right, the location is right, and the ages are right. And the Wrights were probably financially better off than the Sanders, who had only a 40-acre farm for support. Richard had both a 40-acre farm and a cleric's income. And as first president of the South Illinois Methodist Protestant Conference, Rev. Wright certainly had status. Finally, recent autosomal DNA testing by a great grandchild of Grant Frederick Tapscott shows matches with at least six descendants of Richard Wright, father of Isaiah Grant Wright.

This tale is of particular interest to me, since I am descended from both Wrights and Tapscotts. Joseph Tapscott was a brother of my grandfather, John Wesley Tapscott. Isaiah Grant Wright was a brother of my great grandfather, James F. Wright. If our conclusion is correct about the parentage of Grant Tapscott, his male line descendants (and there are several living) could show an autosomal DNA match to me, but not a yDNA match. Is there anybody else out there interested? - Robert E. ("Bob") Tapscott

Anderson Township

Tapscott farms (bounded in blue) with villages, schools, churches and cemeteries.

By 1855, the Clark County, Illinois, Tapscotts were living in Anderson township between the hamlets of Allright to the south and Auburn to the north.

Until 1892, the community just off Fox Road that would become Allright consisted of just a church (later, becoming a Congregational church) and a store, In that year a post office was established in the home of Henry Kile so that locals could avoid journeying to Auburn or Marshall to get their mail. Obtaining postal services required that residents select a name for the nameless hamlet, which they did and Henry Kile traveled to the Marshall courthouse to report the name. According to Carroll Kannmacher, an Allright resident and historian, “He got all nervous, stuttered and stammered and said ‘all right.’ The officials said, okay, you’ll be Allright from now on.” Eventually, the village had three general stores, but the post office, used by the Tapscotts, lasted only a few years, closing in 1908. The town limped along for another half century, the church shutting its doors in 1956. Today nothing remains of Allright.

The village of Auburn was settled in 1833 by one Jonathon Rathburn, who built a log cabin along the Great National Pike. In 1836, the village was platted. One block was set aside for public buildings and another for a school (two lots) and cemetery (eight lots). The town soon contained a hotel (opened by Samuel Williams, from Kentucky), the “Old Buck” Tavern, two groceries, and two blacksmiths. The stores sold as much liquor as the tavern.

The name of the town was changed to “Lodi” and a post office was established there in 1842. In 1857 the name was changed to “Clark Centre” and in 1893 to “Clark Center.” Some claim that the name “Clark Centre” was chosen in hopes that the town would be selected as the county seat after a decision was made to abandon Darwin as the seat of government, but Darwin had lost out many years earlier, in 1839. The Clark Center post office was discontinued in 1907.

Baptist, Methodist Protestant, and Methodist Episcopal circuit riders (who often walked rather than rode) covered the area, holding services in private homes or whatever quarters they could find. They ran revivals and camp meetings, usually filling the “mourners benches” with penitents. They visited the sick and dying. And they often rode or walked from town to town in rain and snow and mud. These early “fire and brimstone” preachers were poorly paid but were filled with the spirit, bringing religion into, what were then, rough frontier towns.

In the late 1700s, the authority of the bishops in the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) began to be challenged. Some of the membership wanted local and lay representation at Methodist Conferences and a voice in the running of the church. A convention of those hoping to reform the church was held in Baltimore in 1824, and in 1827 a minister and several members were expelled from the church for agitating for reform. In the absence of this expulsion, a complete break would have been unlikely. In 1830, however, those expelled were joined by others in establishing the Methodist Protestant Church (MPC), identical to the Methodist Episcopal Church in all ways except governance. The first session of the Illinois Conference of the MPC was held in Alton, Illinois, on 25 Oct 1836.

Auburn Church, the home church and burial place of many Clark County Tapscotts, was a Methodist Protestant Church. In 1842, the Reverend Witherspoon organized the Auburn MPC, which was made part of the Mill Creek Circuit. This Circuit covered all of Clark County and extended south into Crawford County and north into Edgar County. In 1850, the smaller Mission Circuit was carved out to extend from Darwin in the southeast to Grand View in the northwest.

The first quarterly conference for the Mission Circuit was held at Auburn 15 Feb 1845 with Rev. E. C. Peacock presiding. Rev. Richard Wright, the Grandfather of Edna (Wright) Tapscott (wife of John Wesley Tapscott), was the district superintendent. An uncle of Edna, Rev. Henry Patrick Lowry, was a local preacher at Auburn around 1887.

In the early years, there was no church building at Auburn. Meetings were held in homes. In 1860, a new log school house was erected about two miles northwest of Auburn and was used as the church building until the church itself was constructed. In 1883, the trustees purchased two lots held by the school trustees and built the church on those lots. The following is an account of the construction: 

It was finally decided to erect a frame building. Much talk followed, but little action, ‘til one day Ben Lowry took his crosscut saw and ax and went down to Howard McNary’s. Howard asked him what he was going to do. He replied, “Oh, I’m going to cut logs for the lumber for the new church.” Whereupon, Howard called his boys and told them to get their saws and axes and go too. Then the men came to the hill just north of our present home and cut the trees from which the timbers and the lumber was made for the church.

With donated labor, a rough 30-ft x 40-ft building was erected in 1886 at a cost of $1000, but it was not completed until the following year. The building was erected under pastors William Burkett and Daniel McCormick, and was dedicated on 5 Jun 1887 by Rev. Richard Wright.

Rev. Wright was the first president of the South Conference of the MPC. This conference existed until 1922, when it was united with the North Illinois Conference to form the Illinois Conference. In 1939, the Methodist Protestant, Methodist Episcopal, and the Southern Methodist churches united (reunited?) to form the Methodist Church. In 1941, Auburn was placed on the Marshall Circuit and the Mill Creek Circuit was abandoned. Unlike Allright, the village of Auburn (today, Clark Center) and Auburn Cemetery still remain, but Auburn Church was abandoned and, in 2011, demolished.