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Descendants of Thomas R. & Mary Coultas Tagg

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Chatteris Location

Chatteris, Isle of Ely

(now part of Cambridgeshire)

There are no known images of Thomas Ringrose Tagg or Mary Coultas Tagg Moore

Thomas Coultas Tagg

Edwin Coultas Tagg

(courtesy of Thom Baxter)

Henrietta, Herbert & son Richard Tagg

(History of Hyde Co. SD, 1906)

First Presbyterian Church

Holden, Johnson Co., MO

T.R. Tagg Cabinet Furniture Advertisement

Milwaukee Daily Sentinel

(6 Sep - 5 Oct 1850)

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Thomas Ringrose Tagg (1814-1864) and Mary Coultas (1816- 1892) were married in England in 1837. Thomas is believed to be the son of John Tagg and Susannah Ringrose. Mary was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England in 1817 the daughter of James Coultas and Mary Trolley. "Her father was a local preacher in the early days of Wesleyan Methodism and often took her with him on his circuit while she was yet a small child. The impressions then made lasted through life."

Thomas R. and Mary Coultas Tagg had eleven children but only nine appear to have survived passed childhood and are known. Their oldest child, Thomas was born in 1838 in Chatteris, Isle of Ely, England (now part of Cambridgeshire). in 1838. In 1841 the Tagg family is living in the nearby market town and inland port of Wisbeach, St Peter Parish (also part of Cambridgeshire). Thomas is working as a "draper." Within three years they had emigrated to the United States (1843). The Taggs first settled in Charleston, Charleston Co., South Carolina and enlarged their family with the birth of Emma and Arthur R. Tagg The year following Arthur's birth (Oct 1849) was a time of change. The family of five, made the one thousand mile journey to the recently recognized state of Wisconsin. In August 1850, Thomas was a cabinet maker in Milwaukee, Milwaukee Co., Wisconsin. Within three years they had traded in the city life and purchased 160 acres of land along the northern border of Portland Township, Dodge Co., Wisconsin (60 miles west of Milwaukee). The farm was on Elba Road about four miles south of Danville, Wisconsin (nearest village and post office). In the 1860 U.S. Census we find Thomas farming and his family has grown to include eight surviving children. Thomas will have another child the following year, but it will be his last and the 1860 U.S. Census will be the last to capture him before his death in Chattanooga in 1864. Thomas R. Tagg is buried in the Methodist Cemetery in Portland, Dodge Co., Wisconsin. His widow Mary however would appear twice in the 1870 Census. She's shown working the Portland Wisconsin farm with her son Edwin and also in Holden, Johnson Co., Missouri with her new husband James M. Moore, three of his children and her three youngest. James had also been a farmer in Portland Township and was living seven households away with his wife Hannah and five children in the 1860 U.S. Census. The two widows were married in Johnson Co., Missouri in April 1870 where they lived on their Holden Missouri farm. James and Mary worked the farm until shortly after the 1880 U.S. Census when they struck out for the Dakota Territory .Their ill health health caused them to leave South Dakota in 1890. Mary move down with her children in Waco, York Co., Nebraska where she passed away in July 1892. James moved into the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers at Fort Leavenworth, Leavenworth Co, Kansas where he passed away in December 1892. James had severed with 16th Wisconsin Infantry during the Civil War.

In 1856, Dodge County, Wisconsin was described favorably as:

A beautiful, rich, and healthy county. It is one of the best for agricultural purposes, well watered, diversified in surface, being prairie, openings, and a moderate amount of timber, and is of easy access to market. It has sufficient water power for ordinary purposes.

Wisconsin Handbook (1856)

Thomas Coultas Tagg was the eldest of eight known children and the only one believed born in England. He was twelve when his father bought the Portland Township farm. Looking back in 1908, Thomas remembered the county differently:

"Father bought a land warrant on land in Portland and nearly all the children were born on that stony, old farm. We were very poor. I have very little recollection of the old place but a hard struggle for bread, and I grew up to lift my mother and family out of poverty to some degree of comfort, my father having died at Chattanooga. I went to school about six months in an old school house near the farm and one winter I attended a select school in Waterloo. I taught the Whipple district school three winters. The sixteen years I spent in Portland were the hardest of my life and, in a great measure, I wanted to forget them. It was wading marshes after stray cows, breaking up rough brush land, digging stone, working late and early in the woods in winter. We had the same hard grind year after year. They were years of hard knocks."

History of Portland, Manuscript (1908)
(sourced below)

The eight known children of Thomas R. and Mary Coultas Tagg are listed below.

Thomas Coultas Tagg (1868-1954)
Emma Tagg (1847-1865)
Alfred Ringrose Tagg (1849-1933)
Edwin C. Tagg (1851-1919)
George Albert Tagg (1852-1934)
Mary A. Tagg (1855-1934)
Herbert Eugene Tagg (1857-1935)
Walter Varian Tagg (1859- )
Fannie L. Tagg (1861-1937)

By 1871, the Taggs had left Dodge Co., Wisconsin behind. Their adult lives cross paths and center around seven areas (Holden MO; Lee Co. IL, Waco NE, Chicago IL, Sully Co. SD, and Sioux City IA). Mary Coultas Tagg had remarried and settled in Holden, Johnson Co., Missouri with three of her younger children (Mary A., Walter V., and Fanny L.). The oldest child, Thomas and his family had moved to Lee Center, Lee Co., Illinois. In 1870, Thomas' twelve year old brother Herbert E. was living with him and helping with the farm. His brothers Alfred and George were working as laborers on nearby farms. A year later, Thomas was homesteading land in York Co., Nebraska. The oldest daughter Emma died days short of her eighteenth birthday and is buried Dodge Co., Wisconsin. George A. and Herbert E. Tagg migrated to the Dakota Territory in 1884 where they homesteaded in Sully County. Their step-father, mother and sister Fannie followed a year later. Their combined homestead and timber culture land totaled over 1,350 acres. Alfred R. and Edwin C. had made their way to Chicago and started a thriving Tagg Brothers Shirt Company. Walter V. would join them in Chicago and years later move the business to Sioux City, Woodbury Co., Iowa. Mary A. married and remained in Holden, Missouri. They later move to Waco Nebraska. Several of the children later made their way west to Colorado, California and Washington where they spent their later years.

The grandchildren and descendants of Thomas R. and Mary C. Tagg migrated to new places and occupations. Family owned farming continued and the shirt company expanded its product line. New professions added included live stock trading, military service, state legislator, attorney, and physicians (including chief surgeons & hospital directors).

Attachments

Mrs. Mary Moore Obituary, York Republican, York, York Co., Nebraska, 27 Jul 1892, front page

Location of Thomas R. Tagg's 1850 Land Purchase - Portland Township, Dodge Co., Wisconsin

Tagg Migration Path (U.S. hometowns of Thomas R. & Mary Coultas Tagg and their children)

Tagg Homesteads, Sully Co., Dakota Territory

Principal References

Thomas C. Tagg (44 WI Infantry, B Company), Application 929929; Cert 714761, filed from Nebraska, Civil War Pension Application File (Washington DC: National Archives).

Family Bible of Alfred R. Tagg and Harriet C. Barker, Family History Library, 35 N. West Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA 84150 (FHL US/CAN Film 1698051 Item 78 (filmed 1994)).

History of Portland, Manuscript, compiled by James A. Sheridan, transcribed by Elaine J. Gorder originally published in weekly installments in the Waterloo Democrat from March 13, 1908 to December 4, 1908, Dodge & Jefferson Counties Genealogical Society, www.dodgejeffgen.com (Watertown WI). [last checked Jul 2011]

John D. Adams, Three Quarters of a Century of Progress (1848-1923), A Brief Pictorial and Commercial History of Sioux City, Iowa (Sioux City, Iowa: Verstegen Printing Co., 1923). [last checked Jul 2011]

History of Johnson County, Missouri (Kansas City, Missouri: Kansas City Historical Company, 1881).

Sully County Old Settler's Association, editor, History of Sully County, South Dakota (Onida, South Dakota: The Onida Watchman, 1939)

James M. Moore (16 WI Infantry, A Company), Application 929929; Application 824423, filed from South Dakota, Civil War Pension Application File (Washington DC: National Archives).

1850-1930 U.S. Census Enumerations

Tagg Family