Ancestors

Elisha Taber

Elisha Taber was born about 1783, the son of Bennet Taber, a blacksmith of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and his wife Mary Crossman. His parents had married at Dartmouth in August 1782. No record of his birth survives. The year and the county come from a compiled family tree.

The family went west to Ohio. His father was settled in Champaign County, around the new town of Urbana, by 1805. In the spring of 1806 Elisha married Elenor Britton in Warren County, Ohio, to the south. The county's marriage entries give the day as 30 April, 1 May or 18 May.

Within three years he had taken charge of his wife's family. In September 1809 the Champaign County court made him guardian of Isaac Stedham, Maria Murdock, Richard and Lavinia Britton, the minor children and heirs of Richard Britton, deceased. His father Bennet and Alexander Loke signed his bond for nine hundred dollars. That October the Warren County court ordered him to sell the children's town lot, number 21, at public auction. Elenor was probably their sister.

He lived in Champaign County for more than twenty years. In 1813 he witnessed the will of his neighbour Samuel Glover, and the same year he entered land at the federal land office. He paid county tax from 1814 into the 1830s. The 1830 census counts his household at Urbana.

He took on a second guardianship inside his own family. His sister Mary had married John Rhodes, and both died young, leaving two sons, Nelson and James. In March 1829 Elisha, as their guardian, lent six hundred and sixty dollars and sixty cents of the boys' money to Joseph T. Lord. Lord secured it with part of an in-lot in Urbana. A later court paper says simply that "said Elisha Taber having left this County", another man had been appointed in his place.

He had gone to Springfield, Illinois. On 18 December 1832 "Elisha Taber of Springfield" bought three lots in Edwards's addition to the town from Ninian Edwards and his wife Elvira of Belleville. Ninian Edwards had been governor of Illinois, and he died the following year. Elisha sold his son Bennett C. Taber a lot and a half of it in 1835 for fifty dollars. In 1837 he sold the rest to Thomas J. Iles of Fayette County, Kentucky, for a thousand dollars.

He kept buying. In July 1838 he paid Ezekiel and Louisa Pilcher two hundred dollars for town lots. In November 1839 a patent signed for President Martin Van Buren gave him forty acres from the Springfield land office, the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 18, Township 16 North, Range 4 West. He also held land in Logan County, Illinois, and lots in the town of Macomb, in McDonough County. Springfield had become the state capital that year.

On 20 September 1841 he signed a deed and made his will on the same day. He died on or about 3 December 1841. James Adams, the probate justice of the peace for Sangamon County, proved the will on 8 December. The county had no seal yet, so Adams sealed the letters with his own.

The will names five children and no wife. Elenor had probably died. His son William Lawrence Taber received a hundred acres in Sangamon County, including the forty acres of the 1839 patent. His daughter Catharine R. Latham and his son Lemuel Finley Taber shared two hundred acres in Logan County. His daughter Eliza Ann was to have fifty dollars and his son Bennett C. the rest of the money still owed him from his father's estate, with all his personal property. Lots at Macomb went to Isaac S. Britton, Mariah M. Campbell and Lavenia Farnsworth, the Britton children of 1809, now grown and married. Bennett C. and Catharine's husband, Philip C. Latham, were executors. William L. Taber and William Butler signed their bond for three thousand dollars.

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Cite: Heirology, "Elisha Taber (1783-1841)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/elisha-taber-1783-1841-83a96e.