Wabash Valley Tapscotts - A Trip to Gideon Mill

It’s exciting to find the actual words of an early relative. Many years after it happened, the 1 Apr 1954 issue of the Clark County Democrat reports a tale attributed to my great grandfather, William Tapscott, by Ben Strohm, one of the small boys in the photo below.

Gideon Mill, date unknown (Clark Co Genealogical Library).

The eldest of Henry and Susan’s children, William, was born 25 Aug 1826, presumably in Green Co, Kentucky, where his father was living in 1822, but possibly in nearby Barren Co, where the family resided in 1830. At age eleven or so William left Kentucky with his parents, eventually ending up in Clark County’s Darwin Twp with eight siblings. There he helped his father farm. William is claimed to have told the following tale about a 1840 errand to what became known as Gideon Mill, where today’s North Choctaw Road crosses Mill Creek:

William slept under a bolting

chest (Library of Congress).

I drove an ox team to mill to get some grinding done, but so many were ahead of me that I had to stay all night. For supper we ate parched corn. Mr. Duckwall fixed me a place to sleep under the bolting chest for breakfast we had bill of fare as for supper. The whopping I got when I returned home impressed the event on my mind.

Wabash Valley Tapscotts - The Two Nancys of Kentucky

Hi, Tapscott history aficionados -

Despite a dearth of Tapscott family blogs, I have not abandoned family history research. I’ve just been working day and night writing The Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley, a book covering Henry and Susan (Bass) Tapscott and their descendants. Unfortunately there are many, many descendants. Planned for inclusion are detailed biographies on four generations - 210 descendants and 191 spouses - with names and some limited data provided for a fifth generation (another 253 descendants). Several months' work have allowed the lines of Henry and Susan’s four oldest children (William, John, James, and Thomas) to be “biographized,” but there are eight more lines to go. Nancy Tapscott, Henry and Susan’s fifth child and oldest daughter, has now been reached.

A large number of family trees on the internet confuse the Wabash Valley Nancy with her cousin Nancy of Casey County, Kentucky. This is understandable since the two Nancy Tapscotts were both born in Kentucky and have similar birth, marriage, and death dates. But their histories are quite different.

Photo by Ritch Fuhrer

Photo by Ritch Fuhrer

The Wabash Valley Nancy was born in Green County, Kentucky, around 1835, to Henry and Susan (Bass) Tapscott, married farmer William Siverly on 29 Feb 1856 in Clark County, Illinois, and, after giving birth to twelve children, died sometime between 1880 and 1900, probably in Clark County. Her crude grave marker in Clark County’s Shad Cemetery (also known as Siverly or Shotts Cemetery) gives her name, but no dates. Though badly deteriorated, her husband’s marker in that cemetery is more informative.

Photo from Find A Grave

The other Nancy was born in Casey County, Kentucky on 22 Dec 1836 to William Stewart and Rhoda Jane (Coppage). There she married blacksmith George W. Coffman on 23 Dec 1852 and, after raising five children, died on 8 Nov 1914 in Lincoln County, Kentucky. George and Nancy’s gravestone in Middleburg Cemetery, Casey County, is almost illegible, but her name is clear.

Some trees erroneously show the Nancy born in Green County as marrying George Coffman, others show the Nancy of Casey County marrying William Siverly, and several show a single Nancy marrying both George and William. Moreover, several trees claim that Nancy traveled to Clark County and then back to Kentucky to die. I doubt that this blog will result in corrections, but hope springs eternal. Contact me for reliable, contemporary sources for the brief biographies shown above, or for more detailed histories.

But I must get back to writing about Nancy of the Wabash valley, whose line is comprised of 71 people (descendants and spouses) scheduled for biographies. Perhaps I should consider multiple volumes.

An Uncertain Life, Part 1

I am still working on the Clark County, Illinois, Tapscotts, having just finished the life of Henry and Susan (Bass) Tapscott’s oldest child, William. We know a lot about William, his wife Mary Angeline Wallace, and his 960 known descendants (with 674 known spouses). We cannot say the same about his brother John.

The life of Henry and Susan’s second son, John Tapscott, is largely uncertain. We know almost nothing about his wife, who appears from nowhere and then disappears. He had no children, who could have served as a source of information. Extant Clark County Newspapers are almost nonexistent for the latter half of 1870, when John is believed to have died. Death records were not mandated in Illinois until 1877. And his grave marker is so worn that transcriptions are suspect.

John’s badly eroded marker (2014).

Census data indicate that John was born between 1827 and 1829 in, as expected, Kentucky, presumably, Green County. Since John’s Auburn Cemetery grave marker gives his age and date of death, one should be able to calculate a birth date. But two transcriptions of the badly eroded stone, one by your author, give death dates that cannot be correct, 23 May 1850 and 28 Aug 1850. Since probate records show that letters of administration were issued to John’s brother William on 2 Sep 1870, and since John appears in the 1870 Anderson Twp census, the year is certainly 1870 rather than 1850 and August is the more likely month. Accordingly, John’s death date is hesitantly taken as 28 Aug 1870. His age at death is also uncertain. Two grave marker transcriptions give slightly different ages — 41y 2m 14d and 41y 2m 12d, but the major problem is that the number of years, though agreeing in the two transcriptions, is suspect. The latter age allows calculation of a birth date of 16 Jun 1829, in reasonable accordance with ranges calculated from census data, but still questionable.

John took up farming with much of his eventual 160 acres of Anderson Twp land originally belonging to his father. On 15 Apr 1858 in Clark County he married Elizabeth E. Canady, whose middle initial is found only in John’s probate records.

Elizabeth is even more obscure. Born between 1829 and 1832 in Ohio, her parentage is unknown. A number of Canady families lived in 19-century Clark County, but none appear to fit the bill. In 1850 an Elizabeth “Canaday” born in Ohio was living in Darwin Twp. Right location and date to meet John Tapscott and right birthplace, but with a clearly written age of 6 on the census, she cannot be our Elizabeth, unless, of course, the census enumerator made an error. Unfortunately the Canadays disappear from Clark County.

As we have already seen, John died 28 Aug 1870 (or so) at the very young age of 41 (or so) and was interred in Auburn Cemetery. But neither the story nor the mysteries end there, as we will see in a future post.

Dolores Hope (Tingley) Berbaum

Four generations of Wabash Valley Tapscotts
Edna Earl (Wright )Tapscott, Nellie (Tapscott) Tingley,
Jerry Berbaum, Dolores Hope (Tingley) Berbaum, July 1943.

Dolores Hope (Tingley) Berbaum, who passed away 22 Nov 2016 in Urbana, Illinois (obituary), was my cousin and the source of much Tapscott information for my still unfinished book “The Wabash Valley Tapscotts.” She gave me her copy of The Merry Cricket, which describes the lives of the relatives and neighbors of the Tapscotts who inhabited Martinsville, Auburn, and Anderson townships in Clark County, Illinois, at the turn of the last century (blog of 29 Sep 2015) and provided for copying several photos of Tapscotts and their relatives (e.g., blog of 9 Aug 2016). Dolores and her son Jerry also allowed the recording of an extensive oral history of the Clark County Tapscotts. And she authored a detailed “John Wesley Tapscott Family” tree for June Tapscott Leathers, who passed it on to me. Besides, Dolores was a friend who will be greatly missed.

Dolores was the daughter of Nellie Pearl Tapscott and Walter Albert Tingley, the granddaughter of John Wesley Tapscott and Edna Earl Wright, the great granddaughter of William Tapscott and Mary Angeline Wallace, and the great great granddaughter of Henry (“The Traveler’) Tapscott and Susan Bass who founded the Wabash Valley Tapscotts.

My Old Kentucky Home

On 25 Sep 1825 in Green County, Henry Tapscott, the Traveler, married Susan Bass. We know little reliable about Susan, who, unlike Henry, was literate. She is said to have been the daughter of Josiah Bass Jr. and Ann Moody. Josiah and Ann were married 27 Mar 1799 in Green County, Kentucky, and were there in 1806, around the time of Susan’s birth (probably between 1806 and 1808). But reliable sources showing that these were Susan's parents are lacking..

In 1830 Henry, his wife, Susan, and sons William and John, were living in Barren County, southwest of Green County. The household contained two additional boys, aged 5 to 10 and 10 to 15, too old to be any of Henry’s children and far too young to be any of his still unwed brothers, at least those of whom we have knowledge. The household of Henry’s father, William, who was also living in Barren County at that time, likewise contained unexplained children. Henry may have had siblings about whom we know nothing today, possibly because of childhood deaths. Or perhaps they were offspring of Henry’s second cousin once removed, Raleigh Tapscott, grandson of Henry’s great great uncle James and also a resident of Barren County in 1830. Raleigh (Rawley, Rolley, Rolly, Rolla) Tapscott had a prodigious family and may have been very willing to farm out some of his children.

By 1835 Henry and Susan (and William Sr.) were back in Green County, where Henry is shown landless in tax records for 1835, 1836, and 1837.

Henry’s father was also landless. When William the Preacher died around March 1837 he possessed only a black mare, a cow and calf, and some harnessing equipment, an estate bringing a paltry $63.13. Unlike today’s television evangelists with their crystal cathedrals, nineteenth-century preachers almost never gained wealth and seldom achieved fame. Saving souls from perdition was reward enough.

As a teenager and young adult, Henry lived in Green and Barren counties, Kentucky (U.S. Census Bureau).

The Rest of the Story

For some time we have been stuck in the mire of the Sweets and Lowrys. Today, we finally get back to the Tapscotts—sort of.

On 1 Mar 1884, at the Clark County, Illinois, office of Justice of the Peace John G. Towell, Cora Isabelle Tapscott (often called “Bell”) married Richard Morgan Sweet (who usually went by just “Morgan”). Morgan was a grandson of Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Maddox) Sweet. His father was Austin Sweet, a brother of Eliza Ann (Sweet) Lowry, about whom we have heard so much. Cora was a granddaughter of Henry and Susan Bass Tapscott.

In 1880, there were only sixteen Sweets in all of Clark County, most living near Martinsville, a few miles west of the Tapscott farms in Anderson township. The union of Richard and Cora eventually added thirteen descendants to this number—Ithamar, William, Robert, Charles, Emma, Murl, Faris, Ruth, Ruby, Leslie, Eugene, Harold, and Nila. My uncle Clarence Benson Tapscott claimed that there was a fourteenth Sweet, Thomas, but if so Thomas must have died as an infant. No documentation of his existence has been found.

With the many children in the family of Morgan and Bell Sweet and the rather common surname, tracing them down for a book on the Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley has been an onerous task.  One person who was particularly difficult to track was Leslie Morgan Sweet.

Leslie was born to Cora and Richard on 14 Oct 1903. Sometime in the early 1920s, after working on the family farm, he moved to Michigan City, Indiana, and then on to Detroit. There Leslie worked as grinder in an automobile factory, married Agnes May Ford (the ceremony actually occurred across the state line in Ohio), and was divorced in 1952. He next appeared in the 21 July 1957 edition of The Marshall Herald, in which it was reported that the Sweet clan had been called together by the “by the sudden death of their brother and uncle, Leslie Sweet, of Effingham, Ill.” Leslie was buried near Martinsville in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, the resting place of a multitude of Sweets.

Leslie’s life appeared nicely wrapped up until I saw a 24 Jul 1959 Marshall Herald article about a reunion of “Morgan and Bell Tapscott Sweet” descendants held in Covington, Indiana. Among those attending was “Mrs. Leslie Sweet of Effingham, Ill.” Unless Leslie’s ex-wife decided to attend a reunion of her in-laws, which seemed unlikely, Leslie’s life was not “wrapped up.” Moreover, the earlier report that he had died suddenly was a bother. Thus when Mary Frances and I headed for Illinois to do family history research this summer, we set aside a day in Effingham in attempt to put together the rest of Leslie’s tale. (And to eat at an outstanding Effingham restaurant, the Firefly Grill, just down the street from our hotel.) The records collected from the courthouse and the Helen Matthes library have been reviewed, and with the provision of some detailed information by Michael L. Hébert, we can complete the story of Leslie's life.

Leslie Sweet death certificate.

Around 1950, Leslie moved from Detroit to Effingham, where he apparently met Cora Katherine Campbell, to whom he was wedded sometime between 1952, when his first marriage was dissolved, and 1954, when Cora was designated “Cora Sweet” in an obituary for her father. Raised by John and Susan (Hilton) Campbell in the town of Montrose in Effingham County, Cora was first married to Oakley Earl (“Jack”) Hargrave on 15 May 1926. The marriage produced one child, but ended in an acrimonious divorce on 4 Nov 1935, with Jack Hargrave later arrested for nonpayment of alimony.

Cora’s marriage to Leslie Sweet was short. On 9 Jun 1957, at 8:15 in the evening, Leslie stepped in front of a car while crossing a busy street in the city of Effingham and was struck by a driver who may have been blinded by oncoming traffic. He died instantly. Leslie left no descendants.  Less than a year earlier, on 3 Aug 1956, Leslie had been involved in an automobile accident near Mattoon in which he hit the rear end of an automobile. The accident injured five people with one dying.

Two years later, Cora married Gerald E. Lockart, a widowed funeral home owner and operator from Shelby County, Illinois. Dying on 24 Aug 1983, Cora is interred in Montrose Cemetery in Effingham County.

From the 1950s through the 1990s, ABC radio broadcaster Paul Harvey would present little-known or forgotten facts on events and people, concluding his broadcast with the phrase "And now you know the rest of the story." Here, for Leslie Sweet, was the “Rest of the Story.”

All genealogical data reported in these posts are from primary and/or reputable secondary sources, or reliable transcriptions thereof, and never from unsourced online trees. Contact the author to request sources, which have been omitted here to improve readability.

A Very Sweet Family

Nathaniel's marker (photo
 by Shirley I. Shawver Nees).

In 1834 Henry and Susan (Bass) Tapscott left Kentucky and headed for Illinois with their kids, and with more born on the way. A few years earlier another couple had done the same. But Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Maddox) Sweet of Fleming County, Kentucky, detoured through Ohio, rather than Indiana, arriving in Vermilion County, Illinois, in 1836. In the 1840s the Sweets pulled up stakes again and traveled to Clark County, where at first they scattered - Auburn, Cumberland (later Casey), and Melrose townships. Later many congregated in Martinsville Township, just a few miles west of Henry and Susan Tapscott’s newly established farm. Descendants claim that the Sweets broke the virgin prairie soil with a primitive plow and six yoke of oxen, not unlikely though they probably would have had to borrow some cattle from neighbors. But true or not, they started a collection of Sweet farms in the Martinsville area. And they had sufficient descendants to populate that community, for like Henry and Susan Tapscott, Nathaniel and Elizabeth had twelve offspring.

Nathaniel died 3 Jun 1874 at the age of “73y. 8m. 27d.” according to his cemetery marker; Elizabeth passed away on 15 Sep 1878, aged “76y. 2m. 19d.”. Nathaniel and Elizabeth are interred in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Martinsville township, today the resting place of over seventy Sweets and innumerable other descendants lacking the Sweet name (as well as four Tapscotts).

The last several weeks have been spent doing a final unraveling of the Sweet family, which married into the Tapscotts and has thus earned a chapter in The Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley, possibly a very large chapter since it was a very large family. And, of course, we shall hear about some of these Sweets in the days and weeks to come.

P.S.: Nathaniel and Elizabeth Sweet are my great great great grandparents, but through my grandmother Edna Earl Wright, not through my grandfather John Wesley Tapscott

All genealogical data reported in these blogs are based on primary and/or reputable secondary sources, or transcriptions thereof, and never on online trees. Contact the author to request sources, which have been omitted here to improve readability.

Samuel Tapscott

At times, here and elsewhere, I have mentioned Samuel Tapscott, my great great uncle and the last-born of Henry and Susan (Bass) Tapscott's twelve known children. Samuel was a cad and a miscreant.

His known misadventures began at age 22 when, on Wed 22 Feb 1871, in Terre Haute, Indiana, he viciously slashed the face of Alexander Thompson with a spade. Exactly two weeks later, on 8 Mar 1871, Alexander succumbed to his wounds, and the slashing and subsequent trial made newspapers as far away as Wheeling, West Virginia. During our recent trip to the Midwest, Mary Frances and I were able to uncover a number of newspaper articles describing the incident in much more detail than we have had in the past.

The day of the attack, Sam had gone to Terre Haute to visit his sister and brother-in-law Frances Ann and Samuel Lockard and his sister-in-law Mary Ann (Lockard) Tapscott, widow of Samuel’s brother Jacob, who had been killed a couple of years earlier in a Crawford County, Illinois, incident (28 May 2013 blog). Mary Ann Lockard and Samuel Lockard were brother and sister and had married a Tapscott brother and sister. On that fateful day, Samuel Tapscott went out in his sister's yard, which faced an alley, and encountered a neighbor, Alexander Thompson (“Alex”), who had gone out to his stable to milk his cow. Although the two had apparently never met before, they became involved in a heated argument, yelling according to observers, “What the hell are you doing here?” “None of your damned business.” “Get out of the alley you drunken scamp.” “I won't do it, and I don't want any of your jaw.” “Let me kill the damn son of a bitch.” “Let me go; I will kill any God damn man that calls me a damn son of a bitch, or strikes me, or strikes at me first.” But witnesses, several of whom were relatives of Alexander and Samuel, were unable or unwilling to say who said what to whom or who started the row. The argument ended violently with a single blow to Alexander's head and face with a spade. At that point, Samuel and possibly others, ran down the alley. One cannot help but wonder whether Samuel's brother-in-law was involved, though this was never suggested.

About 10 o’clock that night Samuel Tapscott was arrested attempting to leave town on a west-bound train. Former Terre Haute Chief of Police Daniel Crowe, who made the arrest, asked Samuel if his name was “Tapscott.” Samuel responded “No.” Daniel replied, “You are probably the man I want.” Samuel was jailed in Terre Haute with a bail of $2000, which was raised to $5000 a couple of weeks later. And then Alexander did the unthinkable, he died. On 14 Mar 1871 a Vigo County grand jury brought in an indictment against Samuel Tapscott of first degree murder.

Samuel languished in jail while continuances and postponements pushed dates for hearings further and further into the future. Month after month local newspapers announced trial dates, only to have the notices retracted. On 1 Nov 1871, the Terre Haute Weekly Express declared “The question is often asked when will Tapscott be tried for the murder of Alex. Thompson? He has now lain in jail eight months, at a heavy expense to the county.” On 4 Nov 1871 the Terre Haute Saturday Evening Mail covered all bases by announcing “We have positive assurance that Tapscott will be tried next week, unless the case is again postponed. This can be relied upon.” The case was postponed. Finally, on Thu 23 Nov, trial commenced.

The Vigo County Courthouse in Terre Haute, site of the

 Tapscott trial (Judson McCranie, Wikimedia Commons).

The proceedings were muddled. Members of both the Tapscott and Thompson families were near, possibly at, the crime scene, as were some neighbors, but nobody seemed certain of what happened. Everything indicated that Samuel, who did not take the stand, struck the fatal blow. Samuel Tapscott's sister said it "seemed" to her that Alexander had a long stick in his hand. Others mentioned that a rock was picked up by someone, but whether or not it was one of the combatants was unknown. The defense consisted solely of character witnesses from Clark County with such weak statements as “I know his general character. It is good as far as I know.” “I never heard his character questioned one way or the other.” “I never heard anything about his character.” With no defense other than damning by faint praise, one wonders how a jury could possibly vote for acquittal. But around 11 pm on Fri 24 Nov, after a lone hold-out juror finally voted with the majority (either because he wanted to go home or because he felt browbeaten by other jurors, depending on which version one hears), the jury decided for acquittal.

Samuel’s mother, Susan, attended the trial. Samuel's father, who may have been too infirm to travel, is never mentioned. Afterwards a Terre Haute newspaper stated that “We insist that the real sufferers are Mrs. Thompson [Alexander’s wife] and Mrs. Tapscott [Samuel’s mother].” A Clark County newspaper reported “from what we can learn, [Tapscott] bears a very fair character.” In view of his later adventures, which included horse theft and robbery, the description “fair character” seems inappropriate.

If you would like transcriptions of the newspaper articles about the murder of Alexander Thompson, let me know and I will email them. There are some Samuel Tapscott articles on the Hoosier State Chronicles website and on the Vigo County Public Library's Newspaper Archive site, but several of the articles I found appear (at present) on no internet site.

The Tome

Henry the Traveler, The Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley is becoming a weighty tome. It will be difficult to keep it under 500 pages, the limit for hard-binding and for reading without the aid of a book stand (or a forklift). Work has stopped (for a while) on the Sweitzers, descendants of  Henry and Susan (Bass) Tapscott's daughter Elizabeth and has been started (actually restarted) on the Siverlys, descendants of Elizabeth's sister Nancy. Future work remains on the Lockards and the Sanders, descendants of two more of Henry's daughters, Frances Ann and Sarah Ann. A fifth daughter, Lydia A., who married William S. Cardell, appears to have left no offspring, so there are no Cardells to wade through (unliked the Sweitzers, Siberlys, Lockards, and Sanders), thank goodness..

The Siverly family is exceedingly large. Nancy Tapscott and William Siverly, had eight children who lived to adulthood. Six of the eight, married and left children. Right now, with incomplete research, 215 descendants with 125 spouses have been identified for Nancy and William. Among the family names introduced in the Siverly line are Gummere, Moore, Spencer, Montgomery. If I stick to my goals of provided detailed information on only the first four generations for Henry and Susan (Bass) Tapscott with the fifth generation merely named, the number of Siverly descendants included will be just a little over 100 with 70 or so spouses. But then there are the families of the spouses ...

At age 76, I sometimes question my wisdom in taking on such a ponderous task One can only hope that this tome does not turn out to be a tomb.

Progress on the Latest Book

I have not disappeared, but progress on the Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley has been slower than anticipated. To date have found 731 descendants (and 437 spouses) for Henry and Susan (Bass) Tapscott, the progenitors of the Wabash Tapscotts, and there will undoubtedly be many more. Even if I restrict the book to the first five generations (counting Henry and Susan as the first generation), there will be 341 descendants and 232 spouses. And something about the parents and siblings of each spouse is also being included! Sometimes I wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew.

Henry and Susan Bass had twelve children. I am working on the descendants of their oldest child, William Tapscott, who married Mary Angeline Wallace (as it turns out, my great grandparents). William and Mary Angeline had nine children. Research is about complete on the family of one of their daughters, Cora Isabell, who married Richard Morgan Sweet, who were prolific-fourteen Sweet children, most of whom left descendants. As it turns out, Cora and Richard had 85 descendants, not counting very,very recent additions.

Anyway, the work is getting more and more strenuous, but I am optimistic that it will be completed ... some day.

Henry Tapscott in Indiana

I just got through posting the following on Ancestry.com, but I may reach other people through this blog.

Following the death of his father, William the Preacher, in March 1837, Henry Tapscott head north from Green County, Kentucky, traveling through Indiana and ending up in Clark County Illinois in 1840. During this three-year trip, Henry and his wife, Susan Bass, had two children, Sarah Ann Tapscott and Frances Ann Tapscott, both born in Indiana. (Before making the trip Henry and Susan had six other children born in Kentucky and after the trip, four additional born in Clark County Illinois.) In a few weeks I will be making the same trip to research a book on Henry and his descendants, but I face a serious problem. So far I have been unable to determine what Indiana counties Henry passed through or in which Indiana counties his children Sarah and Frances were born. It is sometimes claimed that they were born in Allen County Indiana, but not only is there no reliable evidence for this, Allen County does not lie on any reasonable route between Green County Kentucky and Clark County Illinois. Does anybody out there have any evidence of where Henry was in Indiana?

Books

As I announced in my last blog, Henry the Immigrant, The First Tapscotts of Virginia, 2^nd edition is finished and I fully expect to have it printed before Christmas. I will keep you posted. It will be hardbound, lots of pictures, close to 500 pages with 121 in color. The book contains a list of the first six generations originating from Ann Edney covering both Tapscotts and Georges with spouses (a little over 1200 people total), an index, and 2512 endnotes. Unfortunately, I suspect the production cost will be substantial, about $45 per book. I am printing enough to distribute free to my close relatives and as gifts for a few people who helped a lot. There will be sufficient to sell at cost to those wanting copies.

I am now working on a book about the descendants of Henry Tapscott, son of William the Preacher. Henry, who claimed to have been born in Virginia, lived in North Carolina, then Kentucky, then Indiana, and finally ended up in Clark County Illinois. Henry Tapscott of Kentucky and his wife, Susan Bass, had a large number of descendants (I am one of them), most of the early ones living in the Wabash Valley—Marshall, Illinois, Terre Haute, Indiana, etc. Right now I count 565 direct descendants and 321 known spouses, but the number will greatly increase. I am tentatively titling the book The Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley.

Because the book about the Wabash Valley Tapscotts will come down to the present time, many descendants are living (a problem I did not face with Henry the Immigrant, but did face with a book I wrote on my wife’s family, Bier und Brot, the Wehners of Southeast Missouri). Because some people are concerned about confidentiality, I usually mention living people giving only their names but omitting birth dates, marriage dates, locations, occupations, etc. However, I make an exception for people who specifically approve inclusion of their specifics. If you are a descendant of Henry the Traveler and would like the “detailed” story of your family to be included, please give me information on your history, particularly your recent history, which is often difficult to uncover. I want to warn you, however, that I may reduce the amount of material submitted to keep the book to a reasonable size, and I will edit and rewrite as needed. Also, if you have photographs, etc. please let me know. My profile on this site contains a way to contact me.