Happy Spring to All!
I hope you are enjoying beautiful weather.
What better time than spring for a story about one of our famous Tipton ancestors, the baseball player, Joe Tipton. In 1952, Topps issued Joe’s baseball card while he was with the Philadelphia Athletics. He played in the major leagues from 1948 to 1954 playing catcher for the Cleveland Indians, the Chicago White Sox, the Philadelphia Athletics and the Washington Senators. During his rookie season with the Indians, they played in the World Series. In 417 games, Joe’s batting average was .236 with 29 homeruns and 125 runs batted in!
Joe Tipton played baseball when the sport was truly
The National Pastime.
Joe was born 18 Feb 1922 in Copperhill, Tennessee on the state line between Tennessee and Georgia.
When Joe was young, his family moved to McCaysville, Georgia. He attended high school in Copperhill where he played baseball, basketball and football.
Joe’s baseball career was interrupted for service in the Navy during 1943, 44 & 45; he served on the USS Kadashan Bay Escort Carrier at Leyte, Okinawa and Iwo Jima.
While aboard ship, the Kadashan Bay suffered a kamikaze attack but he was not injured.
Following Joe’s playing career, he coached baseball and managed some minor league teams after which he moved to Birmingham, Alabama where he passed away on 1 March 1994.
Joe Tipton played baseball when the sport was truly The National Pastime. He lived the dream of every young man growing up in his generation. He caught a fastball from Bob Feller, was managed by the great Connie Mack, toured Japan with Lefty O’Doul, was behind the plate with Joe DiMaggio at bat and smelled the freshly mowed grass at Yankee Stadium.
I have some big news. In June, I will be going to England for two months. While there I plan to visit Tipton in the Midlands and Tipton St. John in Cornwall. Tipton in the Midlands, near Birmingham, is the ancestral home of the Tiptons’ Anglo-Saxon tribe, the Tibba. In Tipton, I plan to meet with city officials establishing some direct contact between the City and the Tipton Family Association of America. In Cornwall, I hope to discover Tipton St. John’s connection to our Tipton family. My absence will result in a missed newsletter or two but, without doubt, I shall return with news of note!
Tipton Airport in Maryland
Located near Odenton in Anne Arundel County, Maryland; the Tipton Airport is named for Colonel William Tipton, a veteran of both World Wars. Tipton was a Maryland National Guard officer that died in an airplane crash at the end of World War II.
Beginning in 1935, a US Army Air Base was located on Fort George G. Meade Army base. In 1962, the airbase was enlarged. Subsequently in 1999, the base was decommissioned and became a public airport now operated by the Tipton Airport Authority.
That part of Maryland which became Anne Arundel County was the first home in America for Jonathan Tipton when he arrived from Jamaica.
Jonathan Tipton (1639-1757), grandfather of Colonel John Tipton, immigrated to Maryland about 1670. He settled in Anne Arundel County. Records indicate he owned a plantation called “Pascal’s Chance” in Herring Creek Hundred. Exciting archaeological research is taking place in the vicinity of Jonathan’s land by the Anne Arundel County Lost Towns Project. For more information on the research go to www.losttowns.com and see some of the results of their research at http://anthropology.si.edu/writteninbone/leavy_neck.html
Jonathan Tipton’s obituary appeared in the January 27, 1757 issue of the Maryland Gazette and reads as follows:
“We are informed that at the beginning of this month, died in Baltimore County, Mr. Jonathan Tipton, aged 118 years. He was born at Kingston on Jamaica, which place he left while young, and lived almost ever since in this province, and had his perfect senses to the last, especially a remarkable strength of memory. His youngest sons are reckoned among the oldest men in Baltimore county.”
Jonathan Tipton (1639-1757) is often considered the first Tipton in America. Whether he was first or not, he is the earliest Tipton in America for which numerous records exist and it is possible to trace his life in the early Province of Maryland. His date of birth is questionable due to both the longevity implied and the fact that in 1639 Jamaica was a Spanish Province and Englishmen were not allowed to reside there. Charles D. Tipton, in his book Tipton: The First Five Generations in America, postulates that a birth date of 1659 is more plausible; Jonathan in this case would still have lived until the ripe old age of 98!
St. James Parish Church near Jonathan’s plantation in Herring Creek Hundred records the birth of four sons born to Jonathan and Sarah Tipton. The sons are: Thomas, born 1693; William, born 1696; Jonathan, born 1699; John, born 1702.
St. James Parish Church, Old Herring Creeke, was officially established in 1692 and still exists today with about 325 church families.
No records exist for the marriage of Jonathan to Sarah Pearce Tipton but her death is recorded circa 1709. St. James Parish does record the marriage of Jonathan Tipton to Mary Chilcoat in 1709.
In June, 1731; Jonathan Tipton stated in court that he had been in the Province almost 60 years and that he was over 70 years old. In 1713, he had purchased a plantation in Baltimore County which he named “Poor Jamaica Man’s Plague”. Jonathan was often referred to as a cooper.
Much more about the life of Jonathan Tipton (1639-1757) can be learned by reading We Tipton and Our Kin by Ervin Charles Tipton and Tipton: The First Five Generations in America by Charles D. Tipton.
Charles D. Tipton’s book can be obtained on CD from The Tipton-Haynes Historic Site in Johnson City, Tennessee.
Ervin Charles Tipton’s book has long been out of publication. I am aware of copies in the Washington County Library in Jonesboro, Tennessee; the Johnson City Public Library in Johnson City, Tennessee; at the East Tennessee Historical Society in Knoxville; in the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville; in the Hamilton County Library, Chattanooga, Tennessee; at the Midwest Genealogy Center at Mid-Continent Library, Independence, Missouri.
One can also consult local libraries to learn where other copies might be located.
If anyone knows of copies of this book located in other libraries, please let me know as I get requests for the information almost weekly.
Conversion of We Tipton and Our Kin to CD Project
On April 10th, I met with Brian Johnson, a copyright attorney with The Van Winkle Law Firm of Asheville. Mr. Johnson informed me that before work could begin on this TFAA Project, the heirs of the author, Ervin Charles Tipton, must be determined and contacted and permission to copy the book sought. Mr. Johnson will make an effort to locate the will of the deceased author and I will make an effort to contact the heirs.
If any reader is an heir of Ervin Charles Tipton or any reader knows the whereabouts of his heirs, please contact me at parrish968@aol.com
The following is a request for information from one of our TFAA members. If you have any pertinent information and can help, please contact me at parrish968@aol.com.
Seeking the name of the parents of John D. Tipton who was born in 1830 in Yancey County, North Carolina. He married Martha Bailey. It is believed their children were Baxter, Hiram, Lucinda, Elizabeth, Tempe Ann, William N., Martha, Curtis and Elmira. He served in Company M, 8th Regiment, Tennessee Calvary in the Civil War.
The following informative research materials are available for order from the Tipton Family Association of America. Please add $ 10.00 when ordering for postage and handling.
Dale Reed’s book John Tipton, John Sevier, and The State of Franklin $ 17.00
John Parrish’s book The Life of Colonel John Tipton $ 10.00
Copy of Spoden Map, Courtesy Sycamore Shoals State Park $ 1.00
Copy of Keesee Map $ 2.00
The following can be ordered as indicated.
The Watauga Land Purchases by Troy R. Keesee is available from the Sycamore Shoals State Park Bookstore, Elizabethton, Tennessee.
History of East Tennessee 1740-1800 by George and Juanita Fox can be ordered from the authors at brm887@bellsouth.net.
The Lost State of Franklin by Kevin T. Barksdale is available through bookstores.
The 2014 Tipton Family Association of America meeting will be held in the J. Henry Kegley Meeting Room of the Bristol Public Library at 701 Goode Street in Bristol, Virginia on Saturday, 11 October. Registration will be at 9am. A schedule of events will be published in a subsequent newsletter. Newsletter # 15 erroneously stated the meeting would take place on 12 October which is a Sunday. Sorry for that mistake.
Bristol is a great location for a visit by anyone wanting to visit the locales so important to our Tipton Family history in Virginia and Tennessee.
In Virginia, visit Woodstock in the Shenandoah Valley 275 miles away.
In Tennessee visit: Johnson City and the Tipton-Haynes Historic Site 38 miles away; Elizabethton where the earliest Tipton settlers had their land grants 26 miles away; Blountville, the Sullivan County hometown for John Tipton, Jr., son of Colonel John Tipton and celebrated Tennessee legislator is 12 miles away.
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!