Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong--Antecedents

Among the boxes of family letters are clues that Tom's mother, Mary Nugent Robb Greene, and his great-aunt, Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong (Mimi), at various times tried to fill out the genealogical records of several of their family lines. I have discovered letters to Mimi (and to her brother, Baker White Armstrong, Jr.)  from several distant cousins whom Mimi had contacted, and we have files of disorganized hand-written notes. I am sure I will discover more letters and more information as I go through the piles of family letters. However, here, while we're still pondering the death of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong, I will record what I know about Louisa's family. Some of the information I've discovered online, some comes from those disorganized notes, some from memorials and obituaries, and others from letters.

Note: The same names appear over and over again, sometimes twice over or three times over in one generation, so it's a little difficult to keep people straight. I've done the best I can here and will make changes if I discover I've made some mistake in identifying the correct Robert or John as antecedents to Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong.

Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong (b. 1836) was one of the daughters of John Baker White and Frances A. Streit. However,  John Baker White was first married to Louisa Tapscott, who, according to several records, died fairly young. John Baker White and Louisa Tapscott had three daughters:

• Susan J. White, who married William J. Armstrong of Hampshire County, VA;
• Juliet Opie White, who married Noble Tabb, of Berkely County; and
• Arabella White, who married Judge Lucas P. Thompson, of Augusta County.

 John Baker White's second wife, Frances Streit, bore him nine or twelve children, according to two different records. Of those nine or twelve children, I have encountered  the names of some of the sons, who evidently achieved some distinction in their part of the country: Col. Robert White (b. 1833), John Baker White (b. 1837--became a law partner of James D. Armstrong, most likely the brother of Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr.), Christian Streit White (b. 1840), Alexander White, (b. 1841) and Henry White (the youngest). These were Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong's brothers. What seems a little strange is that Louisa was named after her father's FIRST wife, Louisa Tapscott, but she's the daughter of her father's SECOND wife.

The picture at the top of this post is that of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong's brother, Col. Robert White (February 7, 1833-December 12, 1915).

And now, from various sources, information about Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong's antecedents and relations:

The following History of the White family is quoted from History of Hampshire County, West Virginia: from its earliest settlement to the present by Hu Maxwell and H. L. Swisher, p. 739-743 [Google Books Online] [I have corrected some of the typos.]

The White Family have for many years connected with the history of Hampshire County, especially since the year 1815, when John Baker White [Louisa Tapscott White's father] took up his residence at Romney. They are of Scotch and English origin, coming of an old Covenanter family, and united by the ties of blood on the Scotch side of the martyr Patrick Hamilton and Captain Robert White, who assisted in the defence of Derry in 1688-449, and on the English side with Major Henry Baker, who so largely conducted the fammis (sic) defence of Derry. The family have since the days of Knox been Presbyterians. Their ancestral home was near Edinburgh, Scotland, and is said to be still standing. The first of the family to reside in America was Robert White [Louisa Tapscott White's great-grandfather], who was a surgeon with the rank of captain in the British navy. Visiting his relative, John William Hoge (who was the ancestor of Dr. Moses Hoge, of Richmond, Judge John Blair Hoge, of Martinsburg, and the Hoges of Wheeling), who resided in Delaware, [Robert White] married [Hoge's] daughter, Margaret Hoge. For a while he resided near York, Pennsylvania, where he erected a home and called it, after his Scottish home, White Hall. He then removed with his kinfolk and clientage to Virginia, and built [a home near?] North Mountain, a little west of Winchester, which he also called White Hall. There he died in the year 1752, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and was buried in the old Opequon graveyard, near Winchester.  He had three sons who survived him, Robert, Alexander, and John, all of whom did service in the French and Indian War, and bore commissions under the colonial government. Robert inherited a large part of the estate with the residence of his father, and it descended to his grandchild. Robert was the grandfather of Francis White, who was sheriff of Hampshire County. Alexander became a lawyer of eminence. John was a member of the first bench of magistrates of Frederick County, Virginia, and was the father of Judge Robert White.

"The Earliest Record we have of the White Family in this country" (handwritten records from family archives)--I do not know who hand-copied the six pages of history (front and back), but the two pages typed below are also reproduced in images below the text. These six pages were found loose in a folder of miscellaneous material on family.

Dr. Robt. White was born in Scotland in 1688 and came to this country 1720. He graduated in Edinburgh and was surgeon in the British Navy for awhile. He came to America, married Miss Margaret Hoge, daughter of William Hoge, then living in Delaware but the ancestor of the Hoge Family of Va. He died in 1752, leaving three sons, John, Robt., & Aleck. Robt. lived and died at the home place in Frederick County, Virginia. Aleck was educated in Edinburgh, was a member of the First Congress of the U.S. 1789-93 and of the Convention of Virginia. In 1796, he married a sister of Hon. James Wood, governor. John was a man of influence and distinction. His son, Robert, was the most distinguished of the family and became of judge of the general court of Va. He was educated in Penn, enlisted as a private in 1775 in company commanded by Capt. Hugh Stephenson. He fought at Germantown in 1777 as lieutenant under Major Wm. Drake. After the war, he practised law in Winchester, Va. and became Judge White. He is described as an able lawyer, clear and cogent in argument and for ten years held an eminent position at the bar during which period he was frequently elected to represent Frederick county in Legislature and enjoyed a high reputation among some of the most prominent men of the Common Wealth with whom he was associated. He continued in his high career of usefulness until the spring of 1825 when he was paralyzed and died in 1827. He married Arabella Baker, daughter of John Baker, a prominent man in his day who lived near Shepherdstown, Jefferson County, near West Va. Mrs. Judge White had one brother, John Baker, who was a member of the U. S. Congress in 1811-13 and father of Ann Gilmer, wife of Thomas Gilmer, member of U. S. Congress, governor of Va. in 1840 and secretary of navy in U. S. 1843, whose family resided in Charlottesville, Va. Mrs. Ann Baker, wife of John Baker, was on board first boat propelled by steam by James Ramsey of Shepherdstown on Potomac River 1787. Judge White had several sisters who married respectively a Tapscott, Walters, Hite, and Lyle from whom large families have sprung. Judge White had three children.

 Click on the images below for a better view of these handwritten documents.

 

Alexander White, son of Robert White (surgeon in the British Navy who was the first of the line to settle in America), quoted from History of Hampshire County by Hu Maxwell and H.L. Swisher (full text in Google Books)

Alexander White...was a very distinguished patriot and statesman, and an uncle of Judge Robert White [and thus, a great-uncle of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong]. There is a volume of Virginia Historical Reports which contains four hundred and seventy-nine pages about Alexander White. He was a member of the [House] of Burgesses of Virginia with Patrick Henry, and it is said in the book referred to that Patrick Henry never voted until after he had consulted with Mr. White. Alexander White was an eloquent speaker, and being of old Scotch Presbyterian stock, he was much opposed to the support in colonial days of the church by the State, and it is said that he was the first man in this country to offer a resolution in a public body upon the subject of religious freedom, and this long before George Mason had his celebrated resolutions inserted in the Virginia bill of rights. Mr. White was a member of the Virginia convention which ratified the Constitution of the United States. He was also a member of the first Congress of the United States, and some of his speeches are found reported in the debates of that Congress. It is stated in the histories of that time that he was the most eloquent man in that Congress.... (from pages 739-743)

Judge Robert White [grandfather of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong; son of Robert White, the surgeon in the British Navy]--quoted from "History of Wheeling City and Ohio County, West Virginia and Representative Citizens," by Hon. Gibson Lamb Cranmer, 1902, pages 341-344; Linda Fluharty: See The Wheeling Area Genealogical Society and Ohio County WVGen Web

Judge Robert White
was a resident of Winchester, Virginia, and at the early age of seventeen years became an officer in the Colonial army during the American Revolution. He was seriously injured in the battle of Monmouth-- a gunshot breaking one of his thigh bones. He also received a blow on the head from the musket in the hands of a Hessian soldier, the scar of which he carried through life. He was taken from the battlefield to his home at Winchester, where he was confined to his bed for two years, and during this time he took up the study of law. He was admitted to the bar and soon after was made judge of his district, and then judge of the General Court of Appeals in Virginia, a position he held until his death, at Winchester, in 1830. He married Arabella Baker, a daughter of John Baker, Sr., of Berkeley county, Virginia; her mother, Mrs. Judith (Wood) Baker was a daughter of Peter and Susanna (Howard) Wood, and a granddaughter of Henry Howard, of Howard Hall, England, of the House of Norfolk. A brother of Robert White, Alexander White, was an eminent statesman of the Revolutionary period.....

John Baker White [father of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong and son of Judge Robert White, described above]--from "History of Wheeling City and Ohio County, West Virginia and Representative Citizens," by Hon. Gibson Lamb Cranmer, 1902, pages 341-344; typed by Linda Fluharty (similar information can be found in Maxwell and Swisher's book, a copy which is in Google books)

John B. White... was a clerk of both the circuit and county courts of Hampshire county, then in Virginia (from which county Mineral county, West Virginia, was formed), from the time he reached his majority until his death at Richmond in October, 1862. He was a man of unimpeachable character, and of high standing in the section in which he lived. He married Frances A. Streit, a daughter of Christian Streit, a Lutheran minister and a friend and companion of General Muhlenberg of the Colonial Army. Rev. Mr. Streit was pastor of a church in Winchester from the close of the Revolutionary War until 1830, in which year he died. Mrs. White died in 1867, having given birth to 12 children, among them Christian, who was a captain in the Confederate service, and since the war, clerk of the county court of Hampshire county, West Virginia; Alexander, who was a lieutenant in the Confederate Army and died in 1884; and Henry, the youngest of the sons, who is living at Romney, West Virginia.

More on John Baker White, father of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong, quoted from WVHAMPSH-L Archives on RootsWeb, posted by "singhals," copied from History of Hampshire County by Maxwell and Swisher:

John Baker White was born near Winchester, Virginia, August 4, 1794. He enlisted as a soldier in the War of 1812, and was made an ensign. He was appointed clerk of the circuit and superior court of Hampshire County in 1814, and on March 20, 1815, he qualified as clerk, and he continued to fill both these offices by successive appointments and elections up to the time of his death....Few men have been more beloved and honored than he was among his own people. Possessed of means in his younger days, his house was the seat of true Old Virginia hospitality, and it open its doors not only to friends, relations, and to those of worth and high position, young and old who crowded its rooms, but also to every passing soul who needed food or shelter. The house first built by him in his early life was a large brick mansion. It was destroyed by fire in the year 1857, and upon its site was then erected the smaller brick house in which he resided until driven from it during the war between the States in 1861....Among the persons who to a large degree received their training under his care in his office and as inmates of his home and who afterwards became useful and honorable men were Newton Tapscott, a brilliant lawyer, who died at an early age; Henry M. Bedinger, member of Congress and Minister to Denmark; Alfred P. White and Philip B. Streit, who were in their time perhaps the foremost lawyers at the Romney bar; Judge James D. Armstrong, of the Hampshire judicial circuit, and Dr. Robert White, Presbyterian minister, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. John Baker White up to 1861 was a Union man. He supported Bell and Everett for president and vice-president in 1860, and voted for the Union candidates for the convention which passed the ordinance of secession, one of who was Col. E. M. Armstrong, afterwards of Salem, Virginia, who was Mr. White's son-in-law (my emphasis). But when President Lincoln issued his call for troops to invade and coerce the seceded States, Mr. White at once ranged himself with this State in defence of the rights of the States and the Constitution of the United States as Virginia and her people had always held them...With three sons out of four (the only ones old enough) in the Confederate Army, himself active and effective in his county in bringing the people of this border county, almost in a solid mass to the support of the cause in which his State had unsheathed her sword, he inevitably aroused the enmity of the Federals, and was compelled to leave his home to escape arrest. He went with his wife and young children to Richmond, and was given a position in the treasury department of the Confederate government. He died there on October 9, 1862. His death was no doubt hastened by the loss of his property and the anxieties oppressing him. He was buried by the Masonic fraternity in Hollywood Cemetery, at Richmond.....

Home of John Baker White, father of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong

Colonel Robert White (brother of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong)--quoted from "History of Wheeling City and Ohio County, West Virginia and Representative Citizens," by Hon. Gibson Lamb Cranmer, 1902. Pages 341-344. Typed and loaded online by Linda Fluharty (www.lindapages.com).

Col. Robert White, one of the most brilliant lawyers ever produced by the state of West Virginia...was born at Romney, West Virginia, February 7, 1833, and comes of a distinguished line of ancestors....Col. Robert White obtained his early education in the common schools of Virginia. He then served in the county clerk's office with his father about six years, after which he entered upon the study of law in the school conducted by Judge Brockenbrough, at Lexington, Virginia. He was admitted to the bar in 1854, and began practice at Romney. About one year before the beginning of the Civil War he became captain of a Virginia uniformed volunteer military company, and at the opening of the memorable conflict was ordered by the governor of Virginia to report to "Stonewall" Jackson at Harper's Ferry. He remained in the service until May 14, 1865, saw much hard service, and was in many of the most bloody combats that took place on Virginia soil. After the war he returned to Romney and owing to his father's death and the fact that he was the eldest of the family, virtually became its head, and at once entered actively on the practice of his profession. He was associated in practice with John J. Jacob until the latter was elected governor. He devoted his greatest efforts toward developing the beautiful South Branch Valley, which had been so desolated by the war. He prepared and secured the passage through the legistlature of an act establishing the Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind, of West Virginia, and through his earnest efforts this institution was located in his native town. He served as one of its directors for many years. [much more information to be found here: Colonel Robert White]

I do not know, as of yet, just which John Baker White (and there are several) appears in the photograph below.

Louisa--What Her Bible Reveals

When I began this blog, I knew nothing about Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong, my husband's great-great grandmother whose Bible sits in one of our bookcases.  After locating and reading many letters she had written her sons Baker and Robert Armstrong, I know a great deal more. She was a woman with strong prejudices: she thought more of Southerners than Northerners, she thought (much) less of Texas than of Virginia, she thought her sons should marry Presbyterian girls, she hated liquor and the intemperate consequences of one's imbibing, a prejudice strengthened by the deterioration of one of her step-sons while in the grip of alcoholism. [From a letter to her son Baker, Dec. 10, 1885: "Xmas is coming. Watch & pray my dear boy that you are not led into temptation. Do not taste one drop of anything which intoxicates. It is used so much now. Oh my boy, never, never even taste."] She also was a woman of great affection who feared that her much older husband had too many worries in his old age and that his daily duties contributed to those worries, such as the difficult work of running a farm that seemed to take the family deeper and deeper into debt.  Her letters to her sons reveal her love for them as well as her concern for their well-being, both "spiritually and temporally," to use one of her own phrases. Separated from her adult sons by great distance, she encouraged those young men to write her all the details about their lives, and in doing so, she nurtured in them care for others as well as an openness that one does not often encounter in letters written by young men. (I have yet to come across copies of Baker's letters to his mother--though we do have letters he later wrote to his wife, daughters, and son--but Robert's letters to his brother Baker are full of entertaining details and careful observations.)

Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong was also a woman of faith. She seems to have read the Bible through three times in the last three years of her life, for on one of the first pages of her Bible she wrote: "Began reading April 2, 1885; Began reading April 1st, 1886; Began reading April 1st, 1887." Of course, she might also have begun reading each time, without completing the exercise. But as one goes through the Bible, one will notice pencil marks around verses that seemed to have spoken especially to her:

• Genesis 18:14--"Is any thing too hard for the Lord?...." (The Lord speaking to Abraham)
• II Samuel 22:31--"As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him."
• Proverbs 23:26-32--"My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men. Who hath wo? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder."
• Isaiah 55:6-7--"Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."
• Zephaniah 2:15--"Wo unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness! [a bit of a pattern here--]
• Zephaniah 3:19--"The Lord is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places..."
• Matthew 11:28-29--"Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls."

Not only did Louisa turn to the Bible for comfort, she used her Bible as a physical repository of her sorrows and her hopes. The photo at the top of this post is of items that I found loose within the pages of Louisa's Bible.  Also within those pages was a poem evidently kept to comfort her at the death of her daughter Katie. The last pages of the Bible contain handwritten records of deaths in the family, and of her son Charles' profession of faith in the Presbyterian church. Tucked into the remains of a tattered, handmade cover, is a postal from Baker, written from Baltimore, in 1881, probably on the occasion of Baker's and Robert's first venture together away from their home in Virginia.

And only a few minutes ago, as I was looking closely at the Bible again, did I realize that Louisa passed on to Baker her Bible the day she herself passed on to what she hoped to be her heavenly reward. Inscribed on an inside page, probably in Baker's hand: "For Baker W. Armstrong from His Mother, Aug 20, 1887."

Click on any of the images on this page to enlarge those images.

In a letter to Robert from his sister Janie, dated November 10, 1887: "You have no idea how helpless lonely & sad we all feel now without our dear Mother & sometimes we feel as if we just could not live without her."

The Armstrongs and The Civil War

Buried in the large number of family photos from several generations of Armstrongs, Nugents, Lewises, and Cooks are a couple of photos from the Civil War. These photos remind us of the bloody conflict that took place here on American soil, in the fertile valleys, on the streets of frontier towns, on farmland, in the yards of folks, once neighbors and kinfolks, now on opposite sides of battle. Because my first goal is to organize and communicate what information we have here in our own family records, I have not researched how the Civil War affected the Armstrongs. At the time, Edward McCarty Armstrong and his family were living in what was to become West Virginia, a strong Unionist part of Virginia. Most of the slave-owning plantations were in eastern Virginia, and there was a long history of political differences between these two parts of the state. However, just a little online research reveals that Edward McCarty Armstrong was a delegate to the Virginia Secession Convention, and as a delegate, he voted against secession. However, when the secessionists won later, he supported the Confederacy and eventually moved his family from New Creek (later to be named Keyser, West Virginia) to Salem. Edward McCarty Armstrong's home was later sold to the "Davis brothers of Piedmont" and thereafter the home was known as the Davis Mansion.  The Armstrong Mansion, home of William Armstrong, Edward's father, was located on the site where Keyser High School now stands. The two photos we have of Union soldiers camped in Keyser are near those Armstrong homes. Click on each image for a better view.

This first photo is of the Union Army encamped in the area then known as New Creek and now known as Keyser, West Virginia.  On the back of the photograph is stamped in ink: COYD YOST, Photographer, KEYSER, WEST VA. And in handwriting (Mimi's or Katharine's): Occupation by Union Soldiers, Civil War, Birthplace of Papa. And in my sister-in-law's handwriting: taken from the home of Louisa White and Edward M. Armstrong. Those latest notations would have been made at the direction of my mother-in-law, daughter of Katharine Nugent Armstrong Robb, in 1987.

Just this week, I found among the family papers a letter written to Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong (Mimi), from J. C. Sanders, Superintendent of Keyser Public School. The letter is dated February 27, 1929. At the beginning of the letter, Superintendent Sanders describes the picture of the home below. Then he describes what very well might be the original of the photo above:

Today a high school pupil brought to me another picture of Keyser taken in 1865. This is the picture I mentioned in my other letter. This shows all the land now occupied by the city of Keyser to be occupied by tents of soldiers and the old army fort on the hill now occupied by the Potomac State College. In the back-ground of this picture is shown in a very prominent way the old Davis mansion and almost hidden by a tree may be seen to the left the slave quarters. A photographer here tells me that he is under the impression that he has a negative of this picture and if so a copy from it would cost but a dollar or two. He is looking it up. This picture is an heir-loom and cannot be secured. It bears the inscription: "Photographed in 1865 by G. W. Parsons, 22' Penn. Reg. & Mulligan's Battery. I will be glad to have these copied for you if you desire.

 

In the same letter dated February 27, 1929, Superintendent Sanders writes:

Since writing you the other day Mrs. W. E. Woolfe (sic), the niece of Col. T. B. Davis, has sent me a photograph of the old Armstrong or Davis Mansion house taken in 1863. On the back of the picture is the name of her father Mr. Buxton with the note that it was taken during the late war 1863. It is a 5 X 8 picture that shows beside the house the barricks (sic) of the soldiers in the west end of the town. It was evidently taken while the house was occupied by the Union soldiers because in the yard at the side of the house is shown in the picture two officers (sic) tents. While I have not looked up the records, I am told that Col. Armstrong was a southern sympathizer and this property was taken from him and used by the Union Army and was occupied by an Ohio regiment known and (sic) the Ohio bucktails, named such because they wore squirrel tails on their soldier caps. When the house was torn down several years ago I saw the names of many soldiers from all parts of the West written and carved in the old cupola. Mrs. Wolfe will not part with this picture but will loan it for copies and I have consulted a photographer and he will charge $2.75 to make a negative and about $1 apiece for pictures taken from it. If you would like a picture copied I will be glad to have him do this for you.

From the Nugent-Cook side of the family, we have Civil War discharge papers, among others,  for Edwin Oscar Cook, Sr., but I have not found any such papers (yet) for the Armstrong side of the family.

Finally, although the following picture is not directly related to the Civil War, I include it here because it seems to belong to this post that describes homes of ancestors. On the back of this old photo are inscriptions in two hands, and here I can probably finally decide that the large print handwriting on many of these photographs is that of Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong rather than that of her sister, Katharine Armstrong Robb. First, there is this faded note written with pencil, in cursive: Given to Mary Nugent Armstrong, Mother's Home in Romney, W. Va., N. T. A. My guess is that "N. T. A." is Nettie Tapscott Armstrong. Then, in Mimi's large, round, print: Grandfather White's home, Romney, W. Va.--Our grandmother, Louisa White, Papa's mother's home. (Papa's and Baker's name) Baker White Armstrong. And one small addition, in what might be my husband's print: Louisa White is Baker White Armstrong, Sr's Mother.