Since Dwight has brought new information to light about the TARPLEY-CAMP
connection I'd like to add *new* questions:
1. How do the St. Andrew's Parrish Tarpley's connect/relate to
the North Farnham Church Tarpley's? Since the Tarpleys and
Camps used the same given names over and over in each generation
it gets incredibly confusing. I have copies of birth records
at N. Farnham which (I think) is in Richmond County for the
names attributed to "our" James Tarpley/Mary Camp union. Which
are really ours?
2. There was in the past year controvery over which James Tarpley
married Mary Camp and which married Mary Oldham. I'd like to
throw out a suggestion. I have a copy of a will for a James
Tarpley that
does NOT mention a wife, but states that he is old in body,
so I assume the wife was dead. The children mentioned were:
Mary (looks like Cudailey), Elizabeth Miller, William Tarpley,
Robert Thomas, John, OLDHAM and Paterson Tarpley. (This is
exactly as written in the will) He also leaves a meeting house
and one acre of land and access to a spring to the Methodist
Episcopal Church. He also gives freedom
to two slaves. One in 1800, the
other for 1809. The will is dated 1791 and upheld in 1792.
"Our" Mary Camp Tarpley (mother of Mary Tarpley, wife of John
Camp) reportedly had a brother James who was a Methodist
Episcopal minister. I checked out the records of the
now United Methodist Church (of which I am a member) and
found that there WAS a James Tarpley who applied to be
minister, but was removed. (In those days the circuit
riders were not encouraged, if downright were refused ,
to marry.) John and Mary Camp were pivitol in founding
one of the first Methodist Episcopal Churches in South
Carolina, Lebanon near Princeton. I think that it is
likely that the James Tarpley who married Mary Oldham is
the brother of our Mary Tarpley, not her father. The date
of the will also complies with the life of "our" Mary
Tarpley Camp. The only possible glitch is that the
Wesleys (founders of the Episcopal Methodist Church)
frowned upon slave ownership and of course, would have
not allowed a circuit rider to own much of anything, much less
a person. Unless that is the reason ole' James Tarpley
couldn't cut being a circuit rider. Any ideas?