Sunday, September 7, 2014

Notorious

Less than reputable people lend spice to histories. A while back we heard about the dissolute Samuel Tapscott, son of Henry of Kentucky and a chief protagonist in The Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley. Here is the story of Samuel’s grandnephew Omer Frank Tapscott, who is also appearing in the book.

77-year-old Omer walks up the Coles County
courthouse steps for a preliminary hearing on
a murder charge (Decatur Herald, Decatur,
Illinois, Fri 24 Apr 1959, p. 4.)
Omer, son of James Byron and Sabra Ellen (Mundy) Tapscott and great grandson of Henry of Kentucky, worked for many years as a brakeman for the Illinois Central Railroad and for a while as a pipeline laborer in Marshall, Illinois. But only briefly married (another story) and living with his parents most of his life, financial security eluded him. In 1939, at the age of 56 and the sole support of his widowed mother, he worked only ten weeks and earned but $200.

Either his failure brought him to a wayward life or his wayward life led to failure, but in either case he suffered from numerous brushes with the law. In June, 1915, he was arrested in Decatur, Illinois, for selling bootleg whiskey in nearby Arthur, Illinois. The arresting official was none other than Arthur’s Mayor. Omer was fined $100 (a huge sum in those days) and sentenced to 40 days in the county jail. In January, 1919, Omer was one of fourteen arrested in a gambling raid in Champaign, Illinois. Once again a mayor, Mayor Tucker of Champaign, was directly involved in the arrests.

Menard Penitentiary (now Menard Correction Center),
Chester, Illinois, Omer’s temporary residence (2010).
Omer's biggest scrape with the law occurred in Charleston, Illinois. There, Cooley’s Pool Hall at 505 Monroe Avenue, run by Purne A. Cooley, was a center for Coles County gambling and a magnet for Omer. In 20 April 1959, while playing poker in the back room of Cooley's, Omer became involved in a violent argument with one Buford Hill. Some say that Omer went home and returned with a pistol. Wherever it came from, Omer pulled the pistol from his coat pocket and shot Hill, who died the following day, just shy of age 51. In part because of Omer's age of 77, a Coles County jury failed to reach a verdict and the charge was reduced to manslaughter. Omer pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and requested probation. His lawyer claimed that his client was acting only in self-defense and shot Hill because he feared for his life. The lawyer went on to say that “Any sentence, even if it be only one year, is a death sentence because age and poor health have numbered Tapscott's days.” The judge refused probation. On 14 Nov 1959 Omer was sentenced to four to ten years at Menard Penitentiary. He took his sentence well, stating “I’ll have over $3,000 saved up from my pension checks when I get released.”

Omer failed to learn from his lesson. Several years later, in 1965, at 4:30 pm on a Thursday, 9 December, Illinois State Police simultaneously raided three Coles County establishments suspected to front gambling activities—Knight's Buffet, White Owl Truck Stop, and Cooley's Pool Room. Thirty-four people were arrested. One was Omer, at age 83 still a frequenter of Cooley’s.

Omer passed away less than two years later on 6 April 1967. Today, only a parking lot is found where Cooley's Pool Room once stood. Omer rests alongside his mother in the city cemetery in Marshall, Illinois. Buford lies in Roselawn Cemetery in Charleston.

Friday, September 5, 2014

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?

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Books

As I announced in my last blog, Henry the Immigrant, The First Tapscotts of Virginia, 2nd 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.