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.
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
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 23rd 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 14th 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
[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
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