An Uncertain Life, Part 3

Elizabeth, widow of John Tapscott, and her new husband, Oliver York, soon found that they were being omitted in legal notices about sales of John’s estate. Oliver, Elizabeth, and William Tapscott, John’s brother and administrator, came to an agreement. At the June 1872 term of the Clark County court, agreeing not to press the lack of notification, “Elizabeth E. York & Alvin [Oliver?] York waive further process and enter this appearance being as fully as if they had been served with process two days before the present term of this court.” By 21 June 1872 notices of sales of John Tapscott’s estate included the phrase “subject to the widow’s dower.”

The term “widow’s dower” in William Tapscott’s newspaper notices last appears in a 23 Oct 1873 announcement in the Marshall Weekly Messenger. Then Elizabeth and Oliver York disappear, never to be seen again. What happened to them? Nobody knows, or at least are not saying.

Administration of John Tapscott’s estate drug on for years, and William was under continuous legal harassment for not settling debts. Finally, in Dec 1891, over two decades after John’s death, William “Tabscott” issued a final report, showing $670.24 received from estate sales and 732.88 paid out, including $125.40 going to John’s widow. John had left a burden, not a benefit. The final report included William’s comment

“The undersigned states that he believes the foregoing report to be accurate but that he believes that he has been for a number of years unable to find the papers in said court concerning said estate … and that this report or one due in this case would have been made years ago but for the absence of said papers, which he hopes to be able to get but can not.

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.

Cora Isabelle Tapscott

Family of Richard and Cora

The book, The Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley, is coming along, albeit very, very slowly. One problem is the sheer number of individuals covered. Henry the Traveler, who founded the Wabash Valley clan, has 199 descendants with 155 spouses through 4 generations, which is as far as this book goes. The earlier book, Henry the Immigrant, covered only 132 descendants of Ann Edney (both Tapscotts and Georges) with 122 spouses through 4 generations. While many of the Wabash Valley Tapscott men had few descendants (see “not good husband material” in blog of 28 Aug 2015), this was definitely not true of the women, One example is Cora Isabelle Tapscott, daughter of William and Mary Angeline (Wallace) Tapscott, who is the cause of multiple pages in the current book.

Born 21 May 1869 in Anderson Twp, Cora Isabelle (usually called “Bell” or “Belle”), had a brief childhood. Before age fifteen, she was married, on 1 Mar 1884, in Clark County. The groom, Richard Morgan Sweet, was twenty-two. Morgan, the name he always used, was one of fourteen children of Mary Ellen Johnson and Austin Sweet Sr., a Clark County veterinarian and farmer.

Richard Morgan and Cora Isabelle
Sweet, at Martinsville home, c1932.
 (Courtesy of Sharon Poteet.)

Bell and Morgan, who lived all their married lives near Martinsville, wasted no time. Their first child, Ithamar, was born 29 Dec 1884, their last, Nila, was born 4 Apr 1908. In between were born twelve children, a child every two years.

On 23 Oct 1932, Bell Tapscott passed away. Morgan, who went from farmer to blacksmith in his later years, lived another few years, dying on 13 Apr 1937 at his daughter Nila’s house. Bell and Morgan are interred in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, in Martinsville Twp.

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.