Fred Saunders Tappan, son of Joel and Caroline Saunders Tappan, was born in Woodbridge, N. J. (near Plainfield), June 17, 1853, in the same house in which his father was born. He was killed at New Auburn, Wis., April 29, 1919, while blasting stumps.
His mother was of Rhode Island stock, having been brought up by her grandfather, the Reverend Henry Burdick, a pastor of the Newport Church, the first Seventh Day Baptist church in America. When Mr. Tappan was two years old his parents decided to "go West" in company with others, including his father's brother and sister and their families. With his parents and older brother, Alfred, Mr. Tappan was taken as far west as Milton, Wis., in the early summer of 1855. Here the family lived for about one year.
In the spring of 1856 these families with others resumed their journey westward with ox-teams and one horse, and on June 1st drove their stakes near what is now Dodge Center, Minn. Here the Tappan families - three of them - and a widowed sister and family of four children and Benjamin F. Bond decided to stay, while the family of John Ayars and others went on farther and settled around a place later named Trenton, in Freeborn County, Minn., where they founded the Trenton, (Minn.) church.
These early Dodge Center, Minn., pioneers founded the Dodge Center, Minn., Church in 1859, Caroline S. Tappan, mother of the deceased, being one of the charter members. Four years later, in 1863, they began the erection of a church building.
Fred S. Tappan was baptized and joined this church in the summer of 1868, when he was fifteen years of age, which membership he held until February 13, 1915. At this point he and his wife, Mary, and two sons, Glenn and Haldane, joined the New Auburn, Wis., Church by letter from the Dodge Center, Minn., Church, Glenn's wife Frances and Haldane's wife, Mabel, joining at the same time by verbal testimony.
On February 20, 1877, he married Miss Mary Evaline Brown, at Dodge Center. To this union were born two daughters, Mrs. Martin Ling (Coral), Mrs. George Arnold (Florence), and two sons, Glenn and Haldane, all of New Auburn.
Besides a loving and devoted wife and all his children, he is survived by ten grandchildren, two brothers, Alfred and Frank, four sisters, Mrs. W. E. Churchward (Ellen), of Dodge Center, (adopted), Mrs. Ellis Ayres (Anna), of Superior, Wis., Mrs. H. N. Brown (Josephine), of Battle Creek, Mich., and Mrs. A. N. Langworthy, of Dodge Center, his father, Joel Tappan, of Dodge Center, now ninety-three years of age, and a host of other relatives and friends, all of whom mourn their loss.
It is worthy of note that this is but the third death among all the descendants of these Minnesota pioneers, Mr. and Mrs. Joel Tappan, either by blood, adoption, or marriage, and who numbered eighty-two at the time of this accident. The deceased was preceded by his mother, who died some twenty-three years ago, and an adopted nephew. Thus blessed has been the lot of this sturdy family of pioneers.
The funeral services, conducted by the pastor, Herbert L. Cottrell, were held from his late residence, Thursday afternoon, May first, and interment was made in the New Auburn Rural Cemetery. H. L. C.
