We Tipton and Our Kin
Pictured are the Tiptons and Tipton descendants who gathered in Burnsville, North Carolina on October 12th for the 2013 TFAA meeting
Pictured are the Tiptons and Tipton descendants who gathered in Burnsville, North Carolina on October 12th for the 2013 TFAA meeting.
Fifty-five people from twelve states attended. The states of Washington, Idaho, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Missouri, Kentucky, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee were represented.
Group photo provided by Tipton descendant Chandra Pickering.
At the business meeting, John Parrish, President presented the Treasury Report for the year which was accepted by the membership.
A motion was made that the president be elected for a four year term to insure continuity in the organization. The motion was seconded and passed.
John Parrish was nominated to be president for the 2013/2017 term; there were no further nominations. John was elected president.
A vote was taken to determine the most favored location for the 2014 meeting. Bristol, Virginia and a site to be determined in Georgia were the favored locations. It is probable the 2014 meeting will take place in Bristol, Virginia while the site for a meeting in Georgia is researched. A committee volunteered to research the best site in Georgia for 2015.
Elaine is pictured above
The highlight of the meeting was Elaine McAlister Dellinger’s program Wiley, John D. and Various Tiptons: Fact and Fiction.
Elaine was assisted by Grant B. Ward, the expert on the Lost Cove community located on the North Carolina/Tennessee border where many Tipton families resided. In the afternoon, Elaine and Grant divided the participants into family line and interest groups where information was shared and individual questions were answered and discussed.
Elaine’s program is available on PowerPoint. If you would like to get the program, email me and I can send it to you as an attachment.
The Yancey County Library was an excellent facility in which to have our meeting; Melanie Stallings, Main Librarian, and her staff could not have been more accommodating.
We Tiptons thank them very much.
The TFAA website was discussed and received very favorable comments. Consensus opinion continues to be that having a website is the best and most appropriate project for the TFAA.
Also, much discussion took place about the possibility of reproducing the Reverend Ervin Charles Tipton’s book We Tiptons and Our Kin digitally and distributing it on CD. Copyright issues prevent moving forward on this project without definitive legal advice. Several members are prepared to work on this project and President Parrish is in contact with a copyright attorney to determine what course can be taken.
Many thanks to Helen Abbott, Donna Gregory and Chandra Pickering for their time attending to the TFAA meeting registration desk, coffee bar and gift shop. The meeting simply could not go smoothly without their help!
The fellowship of our collected Tipton family is a wonderful feature of the meetings.
The 2014 Tipton Family Association of America meeting will be held on October 11th the Saturday of the Columbus Day weekend.
The TFAA is in need of additional membership donations at this time!
Over the past year, our bank account was depleted as funds were spent to create and launch our website. The website was established at a very reasonable price but did cost our organization $1,100.00 in the past year. The TFAA’s annual expenses are routinely about $ 1,300.00 so it is evident the amount spent on the website was a large additional expense which depleted our reserves. With the website launched, it is foreseeable that maintaining the website will cost about $ 750.00 per year to pay hosting fees and have a webmaster available for assistance.
Please make your membership donation to the Tipton Family Association of America by mail to 314 Oak Place, Asheville, North Carolina, 28803-1930 or by using PayPal on the TFAA website: www.tiptonfamilyassociationofamerica.com
The TFAA would like to have information about the geographic distribution of our membership. The newsletter goes out to over 300 Tiptons, Tipton descendants and interested parties. About 250 are distributed by email so no geographic destination information is available. Please reply to the TFAA simply giving your state or country. It will be interesting to know which and how many states and countries are home to newsletter recipients.
Tipton & Meyers Drug Store
Tipton & Meyers Drug Store in Washington, D.C. from a 1921 photograph.
No further information on the business is available at this writing.
If you have some knowledge of this business and its Tipton owners, please let the TFAA know.
Tiptons in Central Texas
Menard is the county seat of Menard County, Texas located in central Texas about 200 miles southwest of Fort Worth and about 125 miles south of Abilene. The town and county were laid out in 1858 but the government was not organized until 1871. The San Saba River flows through the county. Originally called Menardville, the area is home to cattle and sheep ranches.
The histories of Menard list numerous Tiptons as builders of the community. Frontier Times Magazine tells us of William Tipton, Frank Tipton and John Tipton. The book Savage Frontier lists Bill Tipton and Plunk Tipton as founders. The 1870 Menard County census lists Johnathan Tipton, Margaret Tipton, Mollie Tipton and William Tipton while the 1880 census lists only William J. Tipton.
In 1869, W. J. Tipton was the sheriff while in 1874, William Tipton was one of the founding directors of The Vaughn Agricultural and Mechanical Canal Company formed to provide irrigation for 2000 acres of land and power for grist mills.
In August, 1889, John Tipton was a deputy sheriff who travelled to Del Rio to escort a group of rustlers back to Menard to face justice. According to this story, five of the stolen horses belonged to William J. Tipton.
A few marriages are recorded: 6 December 1894; Frank Tipton married Emma Graham and 18 January; John N. Tipton married Nellie Schuchard.
From 1900 to 1904, John N. Tipton was sheriff.
Inevitably, some deaths occurred and obituaries are extant for Henry M. Tipton 1915; John N. Tipton 1917; John Martin Tipton 1918.
These facts about Menard and its Tipton citizens were compiled from the publications mentioned and the TexGenWeb Project website, Wikipedia and the Menard, Texas Home Page.
There is a book written titled The Free State of Menard by Pierce although I have no further information about this book. If you have relatives among the Menard Tiptons or you want more information about Menard and its Tipton citizens these sources could help your research.
Benjamin Tipton and his wife, Rebecca Ray/Rhea, had a daughter, Sarah (Sally) Tipton (1781-abt 1817). She married Samuel Doak Sherrill abt 1799 in TN. Not known where they died or are buried.
Sarah and Samuel Sherrill had a son, Uriah Sylvannus Sherrill, who was born in TN abt 1811 and moved to Morgan County, AL, where he died in 1878. Their son, James Absalom Sherrill, was my gr-gr-grandfather, & I can prove the family history on down to me from him.
I need information as to what happened to Sarah Tipton Sherrill and her son, Uriah Sherrill.
If you can provide any history or genealogy regarding the above query, please do so.
Please share this newsletter with everyone you know that could be interested in our family’s history and association. If you are receiving this newsletter by snail mail, please let me know your email address so you can get the newsletter electronically and in color. My email is parrrish968@aol.com.
Previous newsletters are archived on the TFAA website.
The TFAA and President thank the many TFAA members and friends who support our Association financially. That support makes our family’s association prosper and achieve its goal to preserve Tipton family history in the present!
Please support the Tipton Family Association by making your membership donation to the Tipton Family Association of America on the TFAA website: www.tiptonfamilyassociationofamerica.com
Many Thanks to All Who Make Their Membership Donations to
The Tipton Family Association of America
Tipton Family Membership donations make the TFAA able to accomplish the goals of the membership. In recent years, the TFAA has re-established meetings and newsletters, made the book We Tipton and Our Kin available on CD, provided a plaque in honor of William “Fightin’ Billy” Tipton in Savannah, assisted research in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia on the farmland of Colonel John Tipton and the successful quest to find the burial place of Major Jonathan Tipton. With your financial support, we can continue to succeed and do more!