Dr. Joseph Asbury TARKINGTON

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1850, Living with parents in Greencastle, Putnam Co., Indiana
• Census: 1860, Living with parents in Washington, Decatur Co., Indiana
• Census: 1870, Living in Washington D.C.
• Census: 1880, Living in Washington D.C.
• Census: 1900, Living in Washington, Decatur County, Indiana

Joseph married Elva Meredith YEATMAN on 14 Jun 1885 in Washington D.C.. Elva was born in Indiana; died on 08 Jan 1891 in Washington D.C.. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Elvin Yeatman TARKINGTON was born on 31 Dec 1890 in Washington, District of Columbia.
2. Joseph Arthur TARKINGTON

Other Events and Attributes:

• Birth: 30 Oct 1800, Nashville, Davidson, Tennessee, USA
• Census: 1850, Living in Greencastle, Putnam Co., Indiana
• Census: 1860, Living in Washington, Decatur County, Indiana
• Census: 1870, Living in Washington, Decatur County, Indiana
• Census: 1880, Living in Washington, Decatur County, Indiana

Notes:

"Autobiography Rev. Joseph Tarkington:

My great-grandfather was one of two boys, who, by tradition in the family, came with their father from England about A.D. 1700, and settled on or near Albemarle Sound, in Tyrrell County, North Carolina.
One of the two boys, while hunting strayed cows, was stolen by the Indians, and never heard of afterwards.
The remaining boy, my great-grandfather, married, and had three sons, William, Joshua, and Zebulon, born about A.D. 1730 in said county,
My grandfather on my father's side, said Joshua, had six sons, Richard, Joseph, Isaac, John, William, and Jesse (my father), and one daughter, Elizabeth.
My grandfather on my mother's side, said Zebulon, had two sons, Joseph and Joshua, and seven daughters, Priscilla, Keziah, Mary (my mother), Nancy Esther, Deborah, and Elizabeth, called Milley.
My Uncle John married his cousin, my Aunt Priscilla; and my father married his cousin, said Mary.
In A.D. 1798, my father and his brother, Uncle John, with their families, also my mother's mother and her children, moved from North Carolina to West Tennessee, near father's. Uncle Joshua, mothers brother, married in Tennessee.... He was a famous fiddler, and his younger sisters loved to dance to his music.
Mother's sisters were all handsome, springtly, and graceful, and made a merry family. When a lad, many a time have I seen Aunts Esther and Debby, who were slender, lithe, and gay, dance before the large glass by the half hour...
I remember when Millie married peter Swanson. Millie and Debby used to play tricks on the Swanson brothers (Dick and Peter), when they saw them coming, by hiding or running to a neighbor's but they boys finally caught the deer.
We heard that old Mrs. Swanson--who was a great, heavy woman---did not want her boys to marry those gay Tarkington girls, for fear they would be danced out of everything.
General Zollicoffer, killed at Mill springs, married a daughter of Debby and Dick Swanson. Millie and Esther married before the shaking of the earth, Debby after.
Aft. Rev. John Pope began to preach at our house, father would not allow any more balls, as they used to hae there, and the girls were quite displeased at his determination.
My mother's brother Joseph, running, stepped on a cane stub, and died of lockjaw.......

Joseph married Maria SLAWSON on 21 Sep 1831. Maria (daughter of Simeon SLAWSON and Martha WOOD) was born on 22 Jan 1806 in Orange County, New York; died on 16 Dec 1889 in Greensburg, Decatur County, Indiana; was buried in South Park Cemetery, Greensburg, Decatur Co., Indiana. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1850, Living with husband in Greencastle, Putnam Co., Indiana
• Census: 1860, Living with husband in Washington, Decatur Co., Indiana
• Census: 1870, Living with husband in Washington, Decatur Co., Indiana
• Census: 1880, Living with husband in Washington, Decatur Co., Indiana

Notes:

Moved to Rising Sun, Ohio County, Indiana, in the fall of 1818 and to Switzerland County, Indiana, in 1819.

"Autobiography Rev. Joseph Tarkington":

The Slausons were English. My father, Simeon Saluson, Sr., ws from Stamford, Connecticut. He was the son of, I think jonathan Slauson, who is said to have died August 31, 1820. The names of Jonathan's children were Jonathan, Elihu, Simeon, Daniel, Jonas, Sarah, Lydia, Rhoda, and Polly.
My father's surname, correctly spelled, was Slauson. After we moved from New York to Indiana, and he had entered his land, the United States patents for his land came from the Government spelling his surname, as the grantee, Slawson, instead of Slauson, and the neighbors generally in writing spelled it that way. So father got into the havit of writing a W unstead of a U in his name.
Uncle Elihu Slauson was the father of John Budd Slauson, late of No. 16 46th Street, New York City, and "before the war," of New Orleans, Louisiana. Uncle Elihu's wife's name was Esther. Aunt Polly married Dan, and lived in Brooklyn, New York, with her daughter, Adaline hunt. She was ninety years of age when I last saw her, n 1876, I do not remember my grandmother's maiden name. I remember knowing only Uncles Elihu, Jonathan, and Daniel, and Aunt Polly; although I remember an Aunt Rhoda, she was father's sister.
My mother was born near Ballton springs, New York. She was at her Aunt Sally Brown's, in Orange County, New York, when my father saw and courted her; although I have heard that they firt met at a sleighing party on North River. My mother had brothers, Lewis Wood and Halsey Wood, and, it seems, to me, a David Wood, a sister Mary Wood, and Hannah Wood, who married a Mr. Minor Mills.
Father was younger than Uncle Elihu. They bought and lived on a farm in Orange County, New York, three miles from Middleton, where we used to go to the Presbyterian Church, and hear Mr. Jackson preach. Father, however, used to say he did not like to hear him, because he preached with gloves on, and prayed with his eyes open.
Uncle Elihu and we lived on the farm within a dozen rods of each other, having one large yard in common.....
My father was a cooper, and made wooden canteens for the soldiers in the War of 1812. I remember holding a light at night for him to see to make them, he worked one Sunday also. He did not work much on the farm, but attended to his coopering, making mostly butter firkins, meat and whicky barrels, well-buckets, etc. uncle Elihu attended to the farm. The farm was in Orange County, New York, twenty-five miles fro Newberg, nine miles from Goshen, and three miles from Middleton..........
In the spring of 1819, father walked through the snow the one hundred and fifty miles up into Ohio, and brought the horses, and we moved over to what was afterwards our home-place, nine miles north of Vevay, Switzerland County, Indiana, about a mile south of what is now Bennington.
Father had bought one hundred and sixty acres on the east side of the road, intending to move there; but a Mr. Ingersoll owned one hundred and sixty acres opposite, west of the road, and had cleared about three acres and put up a cabin, which he let us move into while he went back to Butler County, Ohio, to bring his family; but his family being averse to coming further West, he sold his land to father. We staid in the cabin three years. It was at the west side of what became the "old orchard," and was on the edge on the woods. The wolves used to howl around the cabin in all manner of voices, each one appeared to have a dozen.
I used to carry the water in summer, after the day's work was done, from Hildebrand's, a mile south of us. I would take four wooden buckets, fill all four, then take two half-way home, go back and bring the other two up to them, take two home, and go back for the other two. We ground corn in a hand-mill, bought of Butcher, who moved up into Decatur County......
I was thirteen years old, the oldest of six children, when we moved to the cabin, was strong and healathy, and helped father clear ground, piling and burning brush and logs, besides helping mother all I could about the house. Work was plenty and help scarce....
After living for three years in the cabin, we moved into a house father had meantime built on the land he first bought on the east side of the road. It was a hewed-log House, of one large room, about twenty feet square, and a shed room on the first floor, and a room up-stairs over the large one. We had two large beds, with a trundlebed across one end of the large room, and in that room we cooked at a large fireplace, the shed and the room up-stairs were bedrooms. there, from December 27, 1830, and March 17, 1831, Daniel, Josephus, Malissa, and Mahala died of winter, now called typhoid, fever. Sisters Matilda and Maluda were born thre; also Daniel and John.....
I was converted at a prayer-meeting in a little log-house up the branch of "Indian Kentuck," at the house of Mr. Marlow, three or four years before I was married. No preacher was there, but the neighbors had simply gathered for prayer. Zenas Sisson led the meeting. Daniel Sisson, Mr. Gardner and his wife, the Chittendens, some of the Mitchells, Jonathan Andrews, and Mr. Jacques were there. Revs. Allen Wiley and aaron Wood were the circuit preachers at the time, and John Strange presiding elder.
I afterwards joined the Methodist episcopal Church at a meeting in the schoolhouse about a half mile north of Zenas Sisson's sawmill, Rev. Allen Wiley minister. None of my family had joined then. rev. Allen Wiley and family lived about three mles east of our house, on a farm.
Rev. John Strange baptized me at a camp-meeting held on father's farm after I joined Church.......
My husband, Rev. Joseph Tarkington, came as a Methodist preacher on the circuit where we lived in 1830. One Sunday in the spring of 1831, as I was on horseback, riding home from John Cotton and Amanda Clark's wedding, he rode up by my side, and asked me if I had any objections to his company, and I said I did not know as I had. He had been stopping at father's on his rounds of the circuit. It was one of his homes. Mr. Tarkington sometime after this, about a month before we were married, as he was starting away on his circuit, handed a letter to my father, which is as follows:

August 30, 1831

"Dear Brother and sister, - You, by this time, expect me to say something to you concerning what is gong on between your daughter and myself. You will, I hope, pardon me for not saying something to you before I ever named anything to her, though she is of age.
"Notwithstanding all this, I never intended to have any girl whose parents are opposed. Therefore, if you have any objections, I wish you to enter them shortly. I know it will be hard for you to give up your daughter to go with me; for I am bound t travel as long as I can, and, of course, any person going with me must not think to stay with father and mother.
"Yours very respectfully,
"J. Tarkington.

Mr. Simeon slawson,
Slawson P O,
Switerland Co, Indiana

Father thought there would be so many dangers, with suffering and poverty, in being a preacher's wife, that it was a very serious matter, and though he was a man of very few words, he told me as much, while he appeared to be gravely affected. But he wrot note, and gave it to him when he came arund next time, which is as follows:

"September 4, 1831

"Reverend Sir, - You express a wish to know if I have any objections to you forming an affinity with my daughter Maria, to which I would reply: If you and my daughter are fully reconciled to the above prposition, which I have no reason to doubt, I do hereby assent to the same, nevertheless, if such a union should take place, it would be very desirable, if you should settle yourself down here, that you would not be too remote from us.
"Yours most respectfully,
S. and M. Slauson

Addressed
Rev. Joseph Tarkington
Pleasant Township,
Switzerland Co, Indiana

We were married on Septembe 21, 1831, as will be seen, without a long engagement, and the life of an itinerant Methodist preacher's wife may be imagined from the narrative of my husband....