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Tapscott (John Baker) Papers
mssTPS
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Contributing Institution:
The Huntington Library
Title: John Baker Tapscott papers
Creator:
Tapscott, John B. (John Baker), 1824-1900
Identifier/Call Number: mssTPS
Physical Description:
7.5 Linear Feet
(5 boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1843-1943
Date (bulk): 1861-1904
Abstract: Papers belonging to Confederate soldier, civil engineer, and surveyor John Baker Tapscott and his family.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.
Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more
information.
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material,
nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and
obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
[Identification of item]. John Baker Tapscott papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased from Katharine T. Rohrbough, June 1966.
John Baker Tapscott was son of Baker Tapscott and Eleanor Morrow Tapscott of Shepherdstown, Virginia. In the early 1850s,
Tapscott left Virginia for Tennessee and settled in Clarksville. Between 1855 and 1857, he was employed by the Louisville
& Nashville Railroad Co. as an engineer and then worked as Division Engineer for the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad
Company. In 1859, he became the City Engineer for Clarksville and occupied this position until February 20, 1861. On January
14, 1862, Tapscott was in Richmond where he applied for an officer's position at the Corps of Engineers of the Confederate
Army. He received his commission as First Lieutenant in March 1862 and was immediately ordered to proceed to New Kent County
to conduct surveys of the lands around the Pamunkey and Chickahominy rivers. In August 1862, Tapscott was ordered to Petersburg
to report to Charles H. Dimmock, at the 1st Division of the Defenses before Petersburg. Except for occasional trips to North
Carolina, he remained at the defenses of Petersburg until April 1865 when the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered at the
Appomattox Court House. After the war, Tapscott returned to Clarksville. Later in 1865, he and Robert L. Cobb entered a partnership;
the firm Cobb & Tapscott advertised their services as "Civil and Topographical Engineers, Architects and Surveyors." The partnership
soon fell apart; Cobb returned to railroad work, and Tapscott worked as an independent engineer and surveyor. On March 4,
1868, Tapscott married Cobb's sister, Mary (Mamie) Aurelia Cobb (1844-1869). Their only child Mary (Maimie) Cobb Tapscott
was born in December 1868; Mary Tapscott died in 1869. In the late 1860s, Tapscott began seeking employment in Missouri and
Louisiana. In 1870, while in New Orleans, Tapscott met Kate Andrews Pegram (born 1854), daughter of George Pegram (1815-1877),
one of the most prominent businessmen of the Mississippi region. John Baker Tapscott and Kate Andrews Pegram were married
on December 4, 1872, in New Orleans. The couple made their home in Clarksville, but Tapscott continued to seek employment
in the West. In 1874, he was in Waco, Texas, and later served as a mineral surveyor for the U. S. General Land office in Pueblo,
Colorado. By the early 1880s, he had returned to Clarksville and remained there until his death in 1900. The Tapscotts had
three children - John Pegram (born 1873), Anna (Annie) Baker (born 1877), and Virginia (born 1879). John Pegram Tapscott left
Clarksville settling first in Lewiston, Idaho, and then Astoria, Oregon where he began working as an office boy for his mother's
uncle Benjamin Rush Pegram. He then became a purser on the Steamer Harvest Queen, and then was promoted to the general agent
and then receiving clerk of the O-W. R. & N. Co. He and his wife Frances had one child, Katharine Tapscott Rohrbough (1908-2001).
The collection consists of family correspondence, military records, genealogical materials, and other papers accumulated by
John Baker Tapscott and his son and preserved by his granddaughter, Katharine Tapscott Rohrbough. The pre-Civil War portion
of the collection includes letters to John Baker Tapscott from his friends and family. Beside the family news, the letters
of Tapscott's female relatives discuss religious sentiment, reading, local gossip, and state and national news, including
Thomas W. Gilmer's death in the explosion of U.S.S. Princeton; the Presbyterian Church in Virginia, Meriweather Jefferson
Thompson (1826-1876); temperance meetings, including a temperance lecture given by John Bartholomew Gough (1817-1886), etc.
Tapscott's sister Elizabeth (Lizzie) Gilmer Tapscott described her studies of "philosophy, botany, and astronomy" with a Miss
Frary. Also included is the letter from Thomas Walker Gilmer to John's father, Baker Tapscott discussing Gilmer's plan to
"depart for Texas in 10 or 12 days." In his letter of January 17, 1861, Samuel Baker Tapscott gives his take on the secession
crisis and the fallout from Abraham Lincoln's election. The Civil War papers, assembled in a scrapbook, contain orders, reports,
communications with Engineer Bureau, and other military records, a few personal letters, passes, passports, and copies of
Robert E. Lee's farewell address to the troops. Also included is an account book entitled "The Confederate States in cash
account with Lieutenant John. B. Tapscott." Correspondents include Alfred L. Rives, Charles Henry Dimmock, and others. Also
included are designs for the Confederate flag submitted by Tapscott in February 1862. The post-war portion of the collection
includes Tapscott's correspondence with his first wife Mary Aurelia Cobb that documents their somewhat tumultuous courtship
in the fall of 1865 through the summer of 1868. The letters exchanged between Tapscott and fiancée and then second wife Kate
Andrews Pegram Tapscott and her father George Pegram were mostly written during Tapscott's travels to St. Louis, Missouri,
New Orleans, Louisiana, Pensacola, Florida, and Waco, Texas. The papers of John Pegram Tapscott includes letters from his
sisters Annie and Virginia and his friend Edwin Thomas, Jr. a Clarksville, druggist; his uncle Benjamin Rush Pegram, and Harold
Pegram Fabian (1885-1975), a relative and a childhood friend. This group also includes childhood letters of John Pegram Tapscott
and Katharine Tapscott Rohrbough, including letters to Santa Claus. The collection also contains a surveyor's field book kept
by Tapscott from 1859 to 1860, his public lecture of the history of the crusades, 1875, his poems, contributions to various
newspapers, reports on the on the transit of Venus addressed to U.S. Transit of Venus commission, 1882, and genealogical materials
related to the Tapscott, Baker, Cobb, Gilmer, and Pegram families.
Processed by Huntington Library staff. In 2022, Brooke M. Black created a finding aid.
Organized in the following series: 1. Correspondence; 2. Scrapbook; 3. Ephemera.
Individual call numbers included in the collection: mssTPS 1-155.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Flags -- Confederate States of America
Genealogists -- United States -- Archives
Mexican War, 1846-1848 -- Public opinion -- Sources
Military engineers -- Confederate States of America -- Archives
Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877 -- Tennessee
Surveyors -- Virginia
Veterans -- Confederate States of America -- Archives
Clarksville (Tenn.) -- History -- Sources
Confederate States of America -- History, Military -- Sources
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Engineering and construction -- Sources
Venus (Planet) -- Transit -- 1822
Family papers -- Tennessee
Family papers -- Virginia
Letters (correspondence) -- United States
Personal papers -- Southern States
Dimmock, Charles H. (Charles Henry), 1831-1873
Gough, John B. (John Bartholomew), 1817-1886
Rives, Alfred Landon, 1830-1903
Tapscott, John Pegram
Confederate States of America. Army. Corps of Engineers -- Officers -- Archives
Confederate States of America. Engineer Bureau -- Correspondence