OUR TARLTON STORY--PART FIVE/Alexander Craig Tarlton

ALEXANDER CRAIG TARLTON

by KEITH WAYNE RAGAN·

In this 1920 map of Wayne County, the yellow spray indicates the area of the original Tarlton estate and where Alexander was born  and had agricultural interests for most of his adult life.  He purchased property either a part of the original estate or adjoining  just prior to his death.  The purple spray indicates the location of his properties and home at the time of his murder.  His demise was likely here.  The red spray indicates the location of the old Moore and Rucker communities.

Our Tarlton Story--Part Five

It is stated that Alexander C. Tarlton was born about 1828 in the vicinity of Ojibway, Missouri in Wayne County in the book “Back Home” written by Nelson Morgan about the communities of Rucker, Cool Springs, and Taskee. In the “History Of Southeast Missouri” by Douglas it is stated that “Alexander C. Tarlton was born in 1828 at the old Tarlton home in Wayne County, Missouri, about four miles northeast of Wappapello on which beautiful estate he was reared and where he was engaged in agricultural operations during the greater part of his active business career.” I believe the latter to be the most likely place of Alexander’s birth and matches well with the information I have already provided. He did come to live in the St Francis Township during his second marriage and during the latter days of his life. He is enumerated there on the 1860 census when his home on Lost Creek, across the St. Francis River from Chaonia may have been included in that particular census.

Alexander C. Tarlton, son of George Washington Tarlton, grandson of General Azion Tarlton, on January 19, 1849 first married in New Madrid County, Missouri to Ursula Phillips. They resided directly across the river in Kentucky for a few months, in what would most likely be Hickman County. He and Ursula had a son, George Washington Tarlton, born October 13, 1849 in Kentucky. The son almost certainly was named for Alexander’s father.

Alexander and Ursula with son George returned to Wayne County by October 1850, as they were recorded on the Wayne County census of 1850 in household number 583, next to uncle John Tarlton, SR’s household number 584 in District 101. This was probably shortly before or after his father George Tarlton’s death. George, the son of Alexander and the grandson of the senior George, recalled that they returned to a part of the original Tarlton plantation. Alexander listed his occupation on that 1850 census as laborer, and his homestead was between that of Uncle John SR and his brother John JR. John JR, Alexander’s senior by two years, likely inherited much of the original estate of their father George as was custom for the time, or may have purchased Alexander’s inheritance, explaining Alexander’s travels to New Madrid County where he married Ursula and his residence for some months in Kentucky.

George Washington Tarlton, Alexander’s son, was only four or five when his mother died in 1854. He later notes that Alexander and Ursula had four children altogether, but that his siblings all died in infancy. Considering the mortality rates for childbearing women in that time, likely the last led to her early death. How long Alexander and George remained at the old family plantation before settling into another home is not certain. By the 1860 census though, it appears brother John, JR was still in possession of his portion of the original Tarlton properties, John SR, the uncle was dead but his widow had remarried and remained on the original properties, and Alexander had relocated to a home in St Francois Township with Greenville as the post office, probably in 1855 when Alexander remarried.. It is likely that the new homestead was either given as a wedding present by, or purchased from the new father-in-law, Meshack Ward, since they were residing next to each other on the 1860 census.

A few additional lines should be devoted to the story of George Washington Tarlton, the only surviving child of Alexander and Ursula, since a portion of it is certainly relevant to the early family history and the recollection of Alexander’s demise. He remained in his father and stepmother’s home in Wayne County until Alexander was murdered in 1864 by the David Reed band of Southern guerillas.. It is well handed down that he hid in the hayloft when the Southern Guerrillas visited that day. He went to Cape Girardeau County when he was between 15 –16 years of age, certainly on a flight of survival, farmed three years and was employed in a woolen factory as a spinner for about three years.

George W. Tarlton was to go on to be one of the most prominent and important physicians in southeast Missouri. The Cape Girardeau newspaper ran a headline caption that read “Native of Kentucky – Father Killed by Bushwhackers in Wayne County” as an announcement of his death. The article went on to note “Dr. George W. Tarlton, the patriarch of Cape County doctors, died this morning at 9:20 o’clock at his apartments on upper Broadway.” It further notes Dr. Tarlton “came to Cape Girardeau county when he was about 17 years of age and lived with Dr. Henderson at Shawneetown until he was about 21, when he came to Cape Girardeau city and worked in the drug store of Dr. W. B. Wilson, under whom he learned pharmacy.”

He taught school for a short time. George later went to St. Louis Medical College and graduated March 3, 1881, practiced for 10 years at Oak Ridge, before settling in Cape Girardeau city about 1894 for the remainder of his career and life. Most of his life, Dr. Tarlton supported the Democratic party, but in his later years was a socialist and was widely read concerning the political questions and conditions of the day. He was a lifelong Baptist. George Washington Tarlton, son of Alexander and Ursula, died of Bright’s Disease in 1915.

Recalling his early life, George W. Tarlton recollected to friends shortly before his death that “there were several slaves about the plantation where they first relocated from Kentucky to Wayne County, and his family was wealthy at the time the Civil War broke out.” The censuses of 1830, 1840, 1850, and 1860 show no slaves in possession of any of the Tarlton clans in Wayne County, however. It may have been that these recollections were actually of families of free persons of color. Or perhaps slaves from the nearby McGee, and Cato families. Or perhaps he was recalling visiting the plantations of the brothers of his mother Ursula Phillips Tarlton. It is well documented that they, in fact, owned slaves numbering possibly into the hundreds.

That Alexander was prosperous though, is further underscored by an account believed attributed to Elizabeth Tarlton, Alexander’s daughter, that recalls “Alexander was English of good quality, judging from a quantity of linen, dishes, and other possessions he brought into the marriage.” She was referring to the marriage of her mother, Mahala C. Ward, my great-great grandmother, to Alexander C. Tarlton in 1855 in Wayne County, Missouri.

Mahala was born in Tennessee, the daughter of Meshack Ward, a prominent farmer, schoolteacher, and county judge of Wayne County, and Elizabeth Wilson, both originally of Orange County, North Carolina. This in fact, was a marriage of two individuals from prominent and influential families. Gary Peterson, the great grandson of Elizabeth Tarlton DeRuse, provided this passage of her recollections of her grandparent’s home by detailing “there was a large fireplace where the cooking was done. Food was dried and hung – pumpkin was a staple. Meat was smoked, wool carded, spun and made into clothing and bedding, so sheep had to be kept, along with cows, hogs, and horses”.

George would have siblings to help watch over, being the oldest child, for Alexander and Mahala C. Ward Tarlton had six children that are known. Francis Marion Tarlton was born in 1856 in Missouri, married in Cape Girardeau, Missouri in 1880 to Josie Block, and died when he was only 38 years of age. Shortly before his marriage, he was living in the home of his cousin Mary or Margaret A. Ward Bennett and her husband William James Bennett in Dunklin County, Missouri. His occupation is listed as “schoolteacher.” Francis Marion Tarlton was named for Francis Marion Ward, Mahala‘s brother.

John Meshack Tarlton was born in 1857 in Wayne County, married in 1884 to Clara Bell Block (boy, those Block sisters must have been something!) in Cape Girardeau, taught school in Wayne County for a number of years, lived for a time in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and died in 1931 in Caruthers, California just south of Fresno. I’m positive this son would have been named for Alexander’s brother, John. I’m sure Azion would have been proud. Another Tarlton man that made it west.

Andrew Jackson Tarlton was born in 1859 in Wayne County, and died of typhoid at 9 years of age.

The aforementioned Elizabeth Jane Tarlton was born in 1861 in Wayne County, married in 1878 to Alexander DeRuse, a Frenchman, in Wayne County, and died in 1927 in McCook, Redwillow, Nebraska. Elizabeth’s memoirs, generously provided to my Aunt Mary (Wilson) Bazzell by Gary Peterson, are important to understanding some portions of the family history. Elizabeth Tarlton DeRuse and Alexander DeRuse (1851 – 1917) are buried together in the Bethel Cemetery in Wayne County.

Susan Ann Tarlton, my great-grandmother, was born on March 3, 1863 in Wayne County. She married my great-grandfather, Daniel Moore on February 23, 1899 at age 40, in Wayne County, had three children, Bessie, Theodore, and Anna, and died on November 28, 1949 just outside of Greenville, Wayne County, in daughter Grandma Bessie (Moore) Wilson’s home on Reece’s Creek. Susan, “Granny”, was declared an invalid on an early census record and was virtually blind from an early age. She lived a hardy and full life though, and was well known as a good and Christian mother in her obituary and a member of the Christian Church in Greenville. That same obituary denotes Dr. George Washington Tarlton of Cape Girardeau as her half-brother.

Marion “Mary” Tarlton, the last of the Tarlton children, was born about 1864 and was listed on the 1870 census as age 6. She was found in her bed dead one morning shortly after this accounting.

 Altogether, Alexander would suffer the childhood deaths and burials of 3 of his 10 children. He would bury a wife. And yet, he himself would be dead by the age of 36.

Copyright by Keith Wayne Ragan, August 1, 2009. This material may not be published or reproduced in any form without the permission of the author. It is intended for family and genealogical distribution, and copies to family records is its intended purpose.