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.

The Militant Lowrys

Only one Wabash Valley Tapscott, Wesley “Tabscott” [31 Oct 2015 post], served in the American Civil War, but some Clark County families into which the Tapscotts married played much larger roles. One was the Lowrys.

Towards the end of the War, on 15 Feb 1865, Jackson Lowry, husband of Eliza Ann Sweet [27 Sep 2015], was mustered into Company C of the 155^th Illinois Infantry, a most unusual action for a 45-year-old married man with seven children. The 155^th was assigned to duty in Tennessee, guarding the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad. By the time the regiment was disbanded, on 4 Sep 1865, it had lost seventy-one men to disease, but not a single one to military action. Jackson's decision to enlist may be due to the actions and fates of two of his sons.

Battle of the Wilderness (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division).

Much earlier, on 5 Sep 1861, Jackson Lowry’s oldest child, Henry Patrick had mustered into the 25^th Illinois Infantry, Company D. Henry was with General Grant at the start of his 1864 Overland Campaign to force rebel forces from Virginia. After crossing the Rapidan River, Union Forces fought a bitter battle with Lee's army on May 5 through 7 across the Wilderness of Spotsylvania, an area crisscrossed by small streams and covered with heavy underbrush. The three-day battle resulted in 29,800 casualties out of 162,920 men engaged. In the days to come, Grant would fight in the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, the Battle of North Anna, and the Battle of Cold Harbor. At some point around this time, Henry was struck by a rebel shell. The date recorded for the injury, 23 Jun 1864, is over a week after the conclusion of the last (Cold Harbor) engagement. Henry's niece claimed that the injury occurred during the Battle of the Wilderness. Of course records of injuries during war are often incorrect. Henry survived, although years later his shoulder still bothered him.

But the Lowry who suffered most from the War was Jackson’s son Lewis Taylor. Military men often overlooked the age requirement of eighteen for enlistment. As many as one-fifth of Civil War soldiers were below the minimum age. Lewis was one of those. On 30 Mar 1864, at age 15, he mustered into Company I, 54^th Illinois Infantry  in Mattoon, Illinois. Just two days earlier, a gang of "Copperheads" had attacked some members of the regiment in Charleston, Illinois, killing an officer and four privates. Lewis's story has been recorded by his daughter Mary Elizabeth (Lowry) Johansen in her book The Merry Cricket [29 Sep 2015]:

[Lewis] enlisted in Mattoon, Illinois, and was sent with hundreds of other young recruits to join General Sherman on his march to the sea. However, before his unit could reach the army in Georgia, news was received that Savannah had fallen. The city was a sea of flames, the campaign in Georgia had been a complete success, and there was much rejoicing throughout the North. But until someone could decide where father's unit should be sent next, it was ordered to stay encamped right where it was.

The green recruits from Illinois were glad to have the chance to rest up. They were led by officers as inexperienced as the men themselves. None of them had been trained in the techniques of war. So, although deep in enemy territory, they lit their campfires and relaxed, all unaware that they had attracted the attention of strong rebel bands which closed in on them easily and which captured the entire unit before it had a chance to resist.

“It was a long march from there to Andersonville,” father said, remembering, but not with bitterness. “Many of the boys who were guarding us were farm boys like ourselves. When their officers were not listening they'd be friendly as could be. What was it like farming up North, they would ask, and what would us Yankees do after Lee had licked us?”

He smiled. “But we changed our minds about them when we finally got to Andersonville. We'd heard about it. The stories had gotten around. But even the worst we'd heard didn't come up to what we found. It was much more than just the most awful filth-infested pest-hold anyone could ever imagine.”

“It was a place where Southern men, and boys, encouraged by the example of the worst bullies amongst them, lost whatever sense of decency they might have been born with and just let themselves have fun being inhuman, not just jailers but murder-loving fiends ! Only a person willing to give up acting like a man could treat other men like animals instead of like human beings.”

“The food was always spoiled, the bread moldy, the soup soured. There was never anything to drink except water and there was just one water spout. This was out in the courtyard and there was a low, stone wall all around it. A prisoner who was thirsty, even those who were sick, had to crawl to this watering trough. But if anyone poked his head up too high over this wall, he was shot at by the guards. Many prisoners, crazed. by thirst, or the pain of their wounds-men whose spirits had been broken or who had given up all hope-deliberately chose this way out.”

“Wirz was hanged for his brutality, his inhuman treatment of the Union prisoners at Andersonville. But he'll be hanged over and over and over again so long as there is anyone left to remember him!”

Andersonville (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division).

Lewis, who mustered out in Little Rock, Arkansas, on 15 Oct 1865, was a survivor. Of the 45,000 Union soldiers confined at Andersonville, nearly 13,000 died at the prison. The prison commandant, Captain Henry Wirz, was the only person to be executed for war crimes during the Civil War.

There is one bothersome problem about Lewis Lowry’s story. Lewis’s name does not appear in lists of Andersonville prisoners. Nevertheless, his story is probably true. Present day prisoner lists are compiled from various sources and are known to have errors. Lewis is known to have served in the Civil War and the details of his story appear to be correct.

Wesley's War

Tapscotts played minor roles in the Civil War. Among those with Tapscott surnames, more fought for the Confederacy than for the Union, and among the Wabash Valley Tapscotts, only Wesley “Tabscott” (see posts of 7 Jun 2015, 6 Aug 2015), a private in the Union Army, saw active service. Enlisting for two terms with Indiana regiments, Wesley served in northern Alabama, where he could have battled his relatives. The Alabama Tapscotts (post 16 Jun 2015), were, of course, Confederates.

Ruins of Nashville & Chattanooga RR bridge and construction of  temporary
pontoon bridge, 1864 (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Online Catalog).

Wesley first joined the 133rd Indiana Infantry, Co. E, mustering in at Terre Haute on 17 May 1864. His regiment was sent to Bridgeport, Alabama, where they were charged with guarding the railroad bridge across the Tennessee River. After 100 days’ service, the regiment mustered out 5 Sep 1864.

The following year Wesley joined the 149th Indiana Infantry, Co. H, mustering in 2 Mar 1865, again in Terre Haute. The regiment was sent to Decatur, Alabama, a strategic site at the junction of two railroads. Just a month later, on 9 Apr 1865, Lee surrendered at Appomattox, signaling the beginning of the end of the War. While serving in Decatur in June 1865, Wesley was taken ill and was hospitalized at Huntsville, Alabama, where he was discharged 11 Jun 1865. He was among the lucky ones. Forty-three soldiers of the 149^th died of disease. (Another twenty-seven deserted).

During our recent steamboat trip, Mary Frances and I traveled on the Tennessee River, docking at Decatur and passing by Bridgeport.

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. Permission is granted to use any posted material for any purpose as long as the source is cited: Robert E. Tapscott, title of posting, Tapscott Family History, Blogspot.com, date of posting.

Judge Constable

Judge Charles H. Constable (John Thomas Richards,
Abraham Lincoln, the Lawyer-Statesman,
Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1916).

Over a decade prior to the Civil War, Illinois had become a free state with the adoption of the Constitution of 1848. The final decision was made only after a prolonged struggle even though there had been few slaves in the state — only 331 when Henry arrived in 1840.

Third Clark County Courthouse, built. 1839. torn down in
1887,  site of the 1863 military arrest of Judge Charles H.
Constable (Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois
 and History of Clark County, 1907).

Although a free state, Illinois loyalties were split by the War. In March 1861, in Marshall, Illinois, several deserters being safeguarded by a group of Clark County Copperheads opposing the War, were arrested by an Indiana army detail. A local judge, Charles H. Constable, freed the fugitives and ordered the arrest of two Union sergeants on kidnapping charges. Under the command of Col. Henry B. Carrington, 250 soldiers arrived by special train from Indianapolis, surrounded the Marshall courthouse, freed the two sergeants, and arrested Judge Constable.

Constable was tried in federal court, but the charges were dropped. Upon returning to Marshall, he and his family suffered threats and harassment. At one point a group of Union Soldiers forced him to take an oath of allegiance. Possibly as a result of the public humiliation, he became addicted to morphine and on 9 Oct 1865 died of an overdose (believed by some to be a suicide).

Judge Constable is buried in the Marshall Cemetery with his wife, Martha, who died just a few months after her husband.

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 Civil War Venture

American Queen (2015).

On the 12^th day of April 1861, at exactly 4:30 in the morning, a mortar shell arched over the harbor of Charleston, South Caroline, exploding above an island fortification, Fort Sumter, and changing America forever. The result of the shelling was variously known as “The War of the Rebellion,” “The War of Northern Aggression,” “Mr. Lincoln’s War,” “The Brothers’ War.”

Mary Frances and I just returned from a Civil War-focused trip, traveling from Nashville to Chattanooga on the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers via the American Queen, a steam-driven paddlewheel. We saw battlefield sites, heard Civil War lectures, and on board the boat “met” Abe Lincoln and Mark Twain (or, at least, their impersonators). The principal purpose of the journey was, admittedly, fun, but our voyage allowed a plunge into Civil War history to better understand the impacts on and the politics of Wabash Valley inhabitants during this desperate period. These will be the focus of some upcoming posts.

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.

DNA, Jamaica, and Bollings

Since posting (21 Oct 2014) the observation of a close DNA match between me and a Jamaican Ford descendant (genetic distance of 2 for a 67-marker yDNA STR test), I have observed an even closer match (genetic distance of 1 for 67 markers) between that Ford descendant and a Tapscott who has never left England. In both cases the DNA difference lies in marker CDYb. The Jamaican Ford descendant shows 37-37 for CDY; the Tapscott living in England shows 37-38 for CDY; I show 37-39 for CDY. Since CDY is a fast-mutating marker, the fact that we differ only in this one marker strengthens the probability that the Fords of St. Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica, and the Tapscotts of England and the U.S., have a common ancestor, quite possibly linked to William Tapscott, the Rebel, who was transported from England to Jamaica around 1686.

What is interesting is that the Jamaican Ford descendant also shows close matches (distances of 1 for 67 markers) with three people descended from ancestors bearing the name Bolding or Bowling (members of Group 5 Bollings, http://www.bolling.net/). Two of these matches are known to show a difference only in the CDY marker (37-38 for both a Bolding descendant and a Bowling descendant compared with 37-37 for the Ford descendant). As you all know, we have found Bolling matches for Tapscotts in the Tapscott surname study. And, more recently, autosomal DNA results also indicate a match between Group 5 Bolling/Bowling/Bollin/Bolding descendants and Tapscott descendants.

It is becoming increasingly likely that the Bolling Group 5 family of Virginia, USA, the Tapscotts of Virginia and England, and the Fords of St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, have a common ancestor through an all-male line, but I would like to confirm this with a paper study. At this point, I am leaning toward a Tapscott progenitor in England with William Tapscott the Rebel starting the Jamaican Fords and someone in early Virginia or possibly England starting the Bollings.

I have proposed a proof of the connection of the Tapscotts and the Jamaican Fords as a problem for the televised Genealogy Roadshow (http://genealogyroadshow.org/casting-page/); however, I suspect that this will not be chosen since (1) it involves records outside the U.S. (which may increase the amount of time that the Roadshow wishes to spend on a project) and (2) I am not a confirmed member of the Ford family of Jamaica and thus cannot give the question the personal feeling that the Roadshow likes. Others (a Jamaican Ford?) may want to propose this or another Tapscott genealogy question to the Roadshow. I would be glad to help.