Sarah E. "Sallie" Stover 1848-1926 My Great Grandaunt on My Father's Side - Part 1

I believe this is a photo of Sarah E. Stover
If anyone seeing this bio can confirm my
identification I would like to hear from you

Sarah E. Stover[1] was the eldest child of David Lincoln Stover and Joanna Gaines. She was born on November 15, 1848 in Elizabethton, Tennessee.[2]  Sarah was one year old when her brother William “Win” was born and two when the 1850 census was taken. Sarah was three when my great grandmother, Carrie Brooks Stover was born, five when their sister Mary was born, seven when David “Bud” Gaines Stover was born, and ten when her youngest sibling, Elizabeth was born. That same year their father died on November 28, 1858 of an unknown cause.

According to the Lincoln Family Magazine Sarah spent time at the White House as a young girl when Andrew Johnson was president. She and her siblings apparently visited regularly to play with their cousins, the children of their uncle Daniel Stover who had married Mary Johnson, daughter of Andrew Johnson. According to Sarah’s obituary “She lived in the White House at Washington during President Johnson’s Administration, living with her aunt, Mrs. Mary Stover, daughter of the President. She was a young woman in her teens at the time and was popular with the White House fold, friends here said…. The days she spent in the White House were exciting ones, according to Mrs. A.G. Wilmore, Oklahoma City, Mrs. Tipton’s daughter.” [3]

When the 1860 census was taken the family was living in the same place in Elizabethton – on the family farm and next door to Sarah’s aunt, uncle and four of her cousins. Sarah was 11 and her mother, now a widow, was 35 years old. Her brother Win had died thus was not listed on the census.

Elizabethton covered bridge draped in snow

Ten years later, Sarah now twenty-one was still living at home, with her mother who mysteriously had only aged 8 years according to the census record that showed her as being 43. The youngest child, Elizabeth was not listed on the 1870 census – presumably she had died as well.

Marriage, Children and Move to Handley, Texas

Later that same year, Sarah married Winfield “Wynn” Scott Tipton on November 15, 1870.[4] Wynn was the son of Isaac Perry Tipton and Ann Pricilla Powell. He was born in Elizabethton on April 25, 1847. Prior to marrying, he served in the Civil War with the Confederates.

Sarah and Wynn had three children – Maude P. Tipton born on December 12, 1871, Eugene Tipton born March 14, 1873 and Robert Wheeler Tipton born July 11,1874. All three of their children were born while they were living in Elizabethton. Shortly thereafter the family moved to Handley which is in Tarrant County, Texas in 1877, one year after the Texas and Pacific Railway extended a line to the town.[5]  They built the first home in Handley and Wynn established a mercantile business.[6] Wynn’s obituary noted that he and his brother-in-law, David Gaines Stover had gone to Tarrant County prior to having the rest of the family join them.[7] According to the obituary they “were held up in  a stagecoach robbery … believed to be by the outlaw Sam Bass.” A separate obituary explains that part of the reason the Tiptons chose to move to Texas was to avoid the disputes that arose in Tennessee after the Civil War.[8]

West Handley Train Station

According to the Handley website, the town was a thriving community settled when the Texas and Pacific railroad came to town. It was named after James Madison Handley who was a Confederate soldier in the Civil War and owned a very large plantation east of Handley. Handley is located east of Fort Worth and is now part of Fort Worth. They chose Handley in part because they guessed that it would eventually outgrow Fort Worth but such was not the case. Today, Handley is a small community within Fort Worth.

Sarah’s sister Carrie either went with them or joined them in Handley about the same time because she married James W. Pattillo in Handley in November of 1879. The Tipton family moved ninety miles west to Stephens County, Texas in 1879, so that Wynn could start a ranching business with his brother-in-law David Gaines but after a three-year drought Winfield gave up ranching and returned to Fort Worth in 1886.[9]

Stephens County, Texas

On the 1880 Stephens County census Wynn was listed as 33 years of age and a farmer. Included in the household along with Sarah were their three children, Sarah’s mother and brother David, who was shown as a “stock raiser”, and a boarder named William Morrel who helped on the farm. James Pattillo was also involved with cattle when he was in Tarrant County, so I wonder if Carrie was introduced to her future husband by her brother David. During the time they were in Stephens County their sons attended school  there and their daughter Maud was a teacher in the Albany School District.

Stephens County, Texas 1890

In 1887, when Sarah was 39, her household was directly impacted by a major event that likely disturbed everyone in the household. On January 23^rd the people riding on the Texas-Pacific Railroad were victims of a daring train robbery. It was a well-executed theft that began with two men approaching the engineer with pistols and demanding that he stop the train on a high trestle bridge where six more masked men were able to board. They forced the engineer to give them the key to the train’s safe and stole the contents which was reported to be worth between $10,000 and $15,000. From there they moved to the mail car on the train where Winfield and his colleagues H.M. Price and Richard Griffin were busy hiding pieces of register mail among the mail bags. They estimate that there were 66 pieces of such mail of which all but 25 they succeeded in keeping from the thieves. The news reports include a detailed account of the thieves’ brazenness, “They (the train’s mail staff) had only one revolver among them, and the command, "open up" given in an elevated animated tone, was promptly obeyed. As the door flew open the tall, thin man remarked: "Boys, you might as well give up: I have been in two or three affairs of this kind, and while I never killed anybody, I'll be G___d d___d if I am afraid to do it. The order was quickly obeyed, and the tall, thin man held up his hand for a light, at which Price remarked: "See here, don't you think it is a little tough to have to pull a man into your car to rob it?" "That's all right," replied the robber, "Pull me in," and he was pulled in, Mr. Tipton as he entered taking off his hat and remarking: "How do you do, Sir?" As the robber was going through the car he was asked, "You do not seem to be much afraid. Why do you not work with a mask?" One of his companions replied: "You see, the captain don't live around here, and he is not in danger of being recognized." The tall, thin man was then asked if his gang proposed to rob the passengers, and he replied: "No, the sons of B-----s have had time to hide away everything.”[10]

Albany park and courthouse, Stephens County, TX

Thanks to the Portals of Texas History website and the intrepid reporters for The Albany News, I can report that Winfield paid a visit to his family living in Albany, Texas on June 27, 1889. That would have been his brother-in-law, David “Bud” Gaines and his wife Nancy “Nannie” Williams Stover who owned a ranch in Stevens County, Texas. There were similar snippets of news about family visits on October 17 and November 14^th in 1890.

Also found on the Portals website were multiple promotional ads for McAllister's Red Front Shoe Store. They ran several large print ads promoting their give-away programs. Each of these ads stated that Mr. W.S. Tipton had already won a Wheelock Piano valued at $500 with his winning ticket number 17,981. The ads also noted that Mr. Tipton was an employee of the Railway Service.[11]

McAllister's Red Front Shoe Store Ad

At the 1891 Railway Postal Clerks Convention, held in Fort Worth, W.S. Tipton was elected Vice President of the organization.[12] A July 3, 1891 article in the Fort Worth Gazette noted that Winfield’s salary as a Clerk in Charge for the Railway Mail Service on the Texarkana and El Paso line was $1300. In 1891 I presume that was their annual salary – not monthly.

Sarah and Winfield's marriage record

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[1] Some family trees show her as Sarah Murray Stover but I think they are confusing her with her grandmother, Sarah Murray Drake Stover. She was listed as Sarah E. on the 1850 census, Sarah E.M. in 1860, just Sarah in 1870,1880 and 1910, and on her death certificate, Sallie S. in 1900, and Sarah S. in 1920 – where the “S” probably refers to “Stover”.

[2] Sarah’s birth year is consistent on the 1850, 1860 and 1870 censuses as being 1848. Her death certificate shows 15 November, 1848 as her date of birth but her engraved headstone shows 20 November 1848.

[3] Obituary for Mrs. W.S. Tipton “Grandniece of Ex-President Buried Here”, 14 April 1926 p.8

[4] Tennessee Marriage Records Dec 1796-Feb 1879 found on Ancestry.

[5] W.S. Tipton Obituary, Fort Worth Star-Telegram 31 Dec 1941 p.15.

[6] The year they moved to Texas is from Mary Wallace, a descendant of Sarah Stover Tipton. Ms. Wallace believes that Sarah’s brother David and their mother moved to Texas with the Tiptons in 1877. This date is also noted in Wynn’s obituary, and the obituary for Mrs. W.S. Tipton “Grandniece of Ex-President Buried Here”, 14 April 1926 p.8

[7] I believe that Winfield and Sarah as well as Sarah’s siblings David and Carrie and their mother all moved to Texas at the same time. The only other living child of David and Joanna Stover, Mary Stover left Tennessee and moved to Los Angeles in about 1900.

[8] Albany News, Jan. 8, 1942, Vol. 57 “Former Resident Dies at Ft. Worth”.

[9] Winfield’s obituary.

[10] Galveston Daily News, Jan. 24, 1887, p. 2 and The Dallas Herald Vol. 2 same date.

[11] Fort Worth Gazette, May 2, 1890, Vol. 14.

[12] Fort Worth Daily Gazette  “The Postal Clerks: A Division Association Formed Here Yesterday”, 2 Sept 1891, p. 2

Sarah E. "Sallie" Stover 1848-1926 My Great Grandaunt on My Father's Side - Part 2

This is the Tipton home at 3800 Mattison in the 
Arlington Heights neighborhood of Fort Worth

Fort Worth, Texas

On September 18, 1891 the Fort Worth Gazette ran a short article announcing that Mr. and Mrs. W.S. Tipton had moved from Albany, Texas to Fort Worth three weeks earlier. This article mentioned that Mrs. Tipton was a cousin of City Attorney Powell. It also mentioned her time spent at the White House during President Johnson’s administration noting that she was known as the “Little Fairy of the White House”. The piece described Sarah as, “refined and modest, but proud of her White House days.”

This home is at 3804 Mattison - the address given
on some of the Tipton documents

Sarah visited her brother Bud Stover at his Stephen’s County ranch the week of August 25, 1893.[1] Several similar visits were reported by The Albany News in 1898, 1899  and 1900. During these trips she sometimes went alone and on other trips she took one of her sons with her or both she and Winfield went together.

An 1895 directory shows Sarah and Wynn living at 1101 Burnett Street in Fort Worth. Wynn and their son Eugene were both working as clerks for the Railway Postal Service.[2] When the 1900 census was taken, they were at the same location. On this census Sarah was listed as “Sallie S. Tipton”. Their son Robert was living with them – he was 24 and still single. They had two black female servants. Grandville Nelson, age 20 was from Mississippi, and Beatrice L. Snooker of Texas was 22. There were also two white boarders in the household – Clinton J. Taylor and Frank H. Hurt. Wynn was employed as a clerk for R.M. Sevier as was Clinton. The other boarder was a railroad postal clerk, and their son Robert was listed as a stenographer.

Also in 1895, I found an article headlined “The South was Slighted” that reported that few southerners were represented in the Republican caucus. In the article it reported the group would support Gen. Henderson of Illinois for the position of clerk and W.S. Tipton of Tennessee as sergeant-at-arms.[3] It is hard to know for certain that this reference is of our W.S. Tipton. A similar topic was covered in 1900 with the headline, “The Split Occurred – Tennessee Republican Convention Followed Time Worn Precedent”. In that article W.S. Tipton was nominated for railroad commissioner. [4]

Article describing the Tipton's move 
to Fort Worth from Albany, Texas

I found an article from 1898 promoting the Washington Hotel in Galveston, Texas that described how it had undergone a major renovation costing $5000 and now boasted of having “one of the handsomest dining rooms in the state with excellent service. Rates $2.00 a day.” One of the recent arrivals at the hotel was none other than W.S. Tipton.[5]

There was a short snippet in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1904 that noted that Sarah had “returned home from a trip to Chicago, St. Louis and Niagara Falls.” It included no explanation for why she apparently made the trip alone. Given that Niagara Falls was part of her itinerary suggests that this was a vacation rather than a trip to visit family. In 1906 Sarah’s son Robert move to Los Angeles, California to take a position with the Illinois Central Railroad.[6] He left his position with the Fort Worth and Denver Railway where he had served as Passenger and Ticket Agent for four years and was Secretary of the Fort Worth City Passenger Agents’ Association.[7]

On August 3, 1900 The Albany News reported that “Mr. and Mrs. T.S. Tipton spent last Friday in Albany on their way home after spending two weeks at their ranch near Crystal Falls.”[8] A separate article explained that when they moved to Fort Worth, they retained their ranch property in Stephens County until Winfield died. Three months later in November of 1900 Sarah and her son Eugene spent time at her brother’s ranch which was also near Crystal Falls.

Sarah would have been 52 in 1900 when her daughter Maude married Arthur G. Wilmore. Amazingly, this event did not seem to make the newspaper – at least I have not found anything about it which I imagine was well celebrated at the time. The following year Sarah’s son Robert married Jennie Emerson Pearson. In March of 1902 Sarah’s mother, Joanna Gaines Stover died and was buried in the Tipton Family Cemetery. In December of 1905 son Eugene married Emily Caroline Colston.

Eugene Tipton is on the left in this photo
from the Fort Worth Sun-Telegram, 1953

Winfield was part of a week-long fishing party in 1904. He went deep sea fishing with a group of railway mail service men in Galveston, Texas. Their objective was to catch tarpon and sharks.[9]

The Tipton family moved to the Arlington Heights neighborhood of Fort Worth in 1907 and that is where they were when the 1910 census was taken. They were shown living at 175 Arlington Heights Road on the census. Wynn was 62 and working as a Superintendent for the railroad. His son Robert was living with them and was an auditor for the railroad. Sarah was 61. Robert’s wife Jennie P. and their three children Winnie R. 7, A.W. (Arthur Wilmore Tipton Jr.) 5 and J.P. (John Pearson Tipton) 2 were also living with Wynn and Sarah. According to the Fort Worth directory they had a telephone at this home.

While they lived in Fort Worth Sarah was actively engaged in community affairs. She was mentioned in the society column of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on November 10, 1912 as having been a guest at the T.A.G. Club.

Mrs. Eugene Tipton, second from the right
Fort Worth Sun-Tribune, 1928

In 1916 Sarah suffered the loss of her younger sister Carrie, my great grandmother, who died in Los Angeles, California. Sarah was 67 at that time.

On January 6, 1920 Wynn and Sarah were living with their son Robert and grandchildren at 1108 W. 5^th Street in Fort Worth. At that time Robert was widowed and there were four children in his household – a daughter Wynne 17, Wilmore 14, John 12 and a daughter Sarah L. age 8.

A city directory lists Winfield S and Sarah residing on Mattison Avenue in Arlington Heights in 1923. According to Wynn’s obituary, their home was one of the first three homes built in the new neighborhood. In 2021, Arlington Heights is still considered one of the nicest neighborhoods in Fort Worth. Their son Robert, who was working as a carpenter, was living with them and their son Eugene, a clerk at RMS, and his wife Emily were living nearby in Arlington Heights. When the 1925 directory was published it showed their street address as 3804 Mattison Avenue. That is where they were living when Sarah died on April 12, 1926 from stomach cancer. She was 77.

Sarah was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Fort Worth, having lived in Texas for 49 years and in Fort Worth for 40 years. Services were held at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.[10] At the time of her death her sons were living in Texas and her daughter Maude was residing in Oklahoma City. “Mrs. Tipton’s four grandsons and two nephews were pallbearers. They are Wilmore, John, Colston Tipton , and John L. Cassell, grandsons and Howard and Sidney Oates nephews, all of Fort Worth”.[11]

Sarah S. Tipton Nov. 20, 1848-Apr 12, 1926

Sarah’s daughter Maude died five years later. She was 60 years old and died while living at 3800 Mattison Avenue, so at some point she apparently had returned to Fort Worth from Oklahoma City.

Maud P. Wilmore, Dec. 12, 1871-May 22, 1931

Fifteen years later Sarah’s husband Wynn was laid to rest with her at Greenwood Cemetery. Winfield Scott Tipton died on December 30, 1941 at the age of 94. According to his obituary Winfield was “survived by two sons, Eugene Tipton of Fort Worth, assistant division superintendent of the Railway Mail Service, and R.W. Tipton of Breckenridge.” He had six grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.

W.S. Tipton, Apr 25, 1847 - Dec 30, 1941

Sarah Tipton's death certificate

Winfield S. Tipton death certificate

Stover Sisters. I am confident of the identification of Mary and Carrie
Stover. The question is whether the third image is of their sister Sarah.
I would be grateful to anyone who can confirm this.

[1] Albany News, Vol. 10.

[2] On 20 February 1915, Eugene and eight others filed a suit against the Railway Postal Clerks’ Investment Association in the District Court of Tarrant County. The case was appealed in 1914 – Tipton v. Railway Postal Clerks’ Investment Company, but the appeal was denied.

[3] Fort Worth Gazette, Nov. 29, 1895, Vol. 20.

[4] Houston Daily Post, April 21, 1900, vol. XVI.

[5] Galveston Tribune, July 4, 1898, p. 4

[6] “Tipton in California”, Fort Worth Star-Telegram 13 July 1906.

[7] “Passenger Men Esteem Tipton: City Ticket Agents Present Letter to Former Associate”, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 21 June 1906.

[8] Albany News, Aug. 3, 1900, p. 6

[9] Galveston Tribune, May 26, 1904, Vol. 24.

[10] Tipton – Mrs. W.S. Tipton obituary Fort Worth Star-Telegram 13 April 1926.

[11] Obituary for Mrs. W.S. Tipton “Grandniece of Ex-President Buried Here”, I 14 April 1926 p.8