Montrose County CO Archives Biographies.....Tappan, Stephen V. 1847 - ?
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net March 26, 2006, 9:36 am

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     Born in LaPorte county, Indiana, twelve miles northeast of the city of

LaPorte and four miles south of the town of Three Oaks, Michigan, and growing to

manhood there, Stephen V. Tappan, of Montrose county, this state, was reared in

the midst of one of the most fertile and prolific agricultural regions of this

country, and the lessons of rural life and its leading industry he learned there

have been of inestimable benefit to him in all his subsequent career.  His life

began in 1847, and he is the son of Julius and Philuria (Marshall) Tappan, the

father a native of New York and married there, his wife also being native in

that state.  In 1836, soon after their marriage, they moved to Indiana and

settled in LaPorte county not far from the Michigan line, where to the end of

their lives they were engaged in farming, except during the Civil war when the

father was at the front as a member of the Forty-eighth Indiana Infantry,

Company D, and the mother managed the farm alone.  He entered the army on

December 6, 1861, and was not mustered out of the service until after General

Lee’s surrender.  Returning then to his farm work he followed that until his

death in 1876, at the age of sixty years.  He was prominent in local affairs,

filling various township offices, and after the war to the end of his life was

an enthusiastic member of the Grand Army of the Republic.  His parents were

Stephen and Betsey (Woodward) Tappan, natives of Connecticut, who moved to New

York and settled near Syracuse in early days.  The father was a veteran of the

war of 1812, a captain in the service, and his son Julius, who entered the

service as a private in the Civil war, rose to the rank of sergeant.  The

grandfather of the subject of this sketch was a farmer and surveyor, and was a

prominent figure in the military organization of his town of Baldwinsville,

where he died in 1828.  His wife also died there, passing away in 1866.  The

greater part of her life after the death of her husband was passed in Berrien

county, Michigan.  She was the mother of twelve children.  Stephen Tappan’s

mother was the daughter of Noah and Ruth (Paddock) Marshall.  Her father was a

native of Connecticut and an early settler in the neighborhood of Syracuse. 

From there he moved to Indiana and later to Illinois.  His last days were spent

in Indiana, where both he and his wife died and were buried.  Their daughter,

the mother of Stephen, died in 1893, at the age of seventy-four, having been the

mother of ten children, of whom he was the fifth.  He remained on the paternal

homestead until he was twenty-four, and having the trade of a carpenter, worked

at that and farmed in Indiana until 1877, then engaged in the grocery business

at New Carlisle, St. Joseph county, alone for a time and later with a partner

under the firm name of Tappan & White.  He followed this until 1882 when he sold

out and came to Gunnison county, Colorado, where he prospected and kept a store

for two years.  In 1884 he turned his attention to farming, homesteading on one

hundred and sixty acres of sage brush land five miles from the town of Montrose.

 A few years later he bought the place he now lives on of eighty acres one mile

nearer the town and has since made that his home.  Here he has five hundred

fruit trees, apples, peaches and others, and a large acreage of small fruits,

from which he has an abundant yield.  He also carries on a thriving stock

business.  In politics he is an active Republican.  In 1889 he was married in

Montrose county to Miss Mary Smith, daughter of M.W. Smith, the subject of

another sketch in these pages.  They have one son, Charley.  In addition to his

farming and fruit industries Mr. Tappan is interested largely in mining

properties in western Colorado.  He had two brothers, Thomas Jefferson and Noah

M., in the Civil war.  Thomas belonged to the Ninth Illinois Cavalry and Noah to

the Twentieth Indiana Infantry.  The latter was wounded at the battle of Malvern

Hill.  

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/montrose/bios/tappan474gbs.txt

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