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The Taylor Family. Chapter XI.
AMONG the most distinguished of the early settlers in Louisville were
the Taylor brothers, Col. Richard Taylor, the father of Gen. Zachary Taylor,
president of the United States, Hancock Taylor, deputy surveyor under Col.
William Preston, and Capt. Zachary Taylor, men of finest Virginia stock,
who were prominent actors in the romantic history-making days before Kentucky
was a State.
"Hare Forest," four miles from Orange Court House, VA,
was the early home of the Taylor family, founded by James Taylor
and his wife, Frances, who came from Carlisle, England, in the seventeenth
century. James Taylor was a man of affairs, interested in the well being
of the colonies, and owning wide acres in Virginia. His only son, James
Taylor, who was one of the first surveyor generals, was colonel of Orange
county militia, a Knight of the Golden Horse Shoe, and a burgess of King
and Queen county, 1702-1714. His wife was Martha Thompson, a daughter of
Col. William Thompson, of the British army, whose father, Sir Roger Thompson,
served under Cromwell. After Col. Taylor's death, the House of Burgesses
ordered Hanover,
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Spottsylvania, and Orange counties to pay one thousand pounds of tobacco
to his widow in recognition of his services in running the boundaries of
these counties. James and Martha Thompson were the great grandparents of
two presidents of the United States-James Madison and Zachary Taylor. From
two sons of James Taylor II., Col. George Taylor and his wife, Rachael
Gibson, and Zachary Taylor and his wife, Elizabeth Lee, of the Virginia
Lees, are descended a hundred dozen Kentuckians, and from them come the
numerous members of the Taylor family in Louisville.
George Taylor was colonel of Orange county militia and
fought in Indian wars; Burgess of Orange county, 1748-49, 1752-58; member
of Committee of Safety, 1774-75; member of convention in 1775; vestryman
of Episcopal church in King George county; Clerk of Orange county for many
years. He was the father of ten soldiers of the Revolution, nine of whom
were officers. James Taylor was sergeant major of militia, afterward Clerk
of Orange county, a position formerly held by his father, Lieut. Jonathan
Taylor married Anne Berry, of Gloucester, Va., and settled in Clark county,
Ky., in 1789, establishing their home, "Basin Springs." Edmund Taylor was
captain, serving on the Virginia State Line; he married Catherine Stubbs.
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Richard Taylor was commodore of the navy and received a thousand acres
of land in Kentucky from his country in recognition of his distinguished
services. Commodore Taylor lived in Louisville for a number of years before
his death in 1825.
Francis Taylor was appointed a captain, but was made colonel
of regulars in 1779. Lieut. John Taylor was appointed a midshipman in the
navy and died a British prisoner on the old Jersey prison ship. Major William
Taylor served through the war, married his cousin, Elizabeth Taylor, came
early to Kentucky, and was in Louisville, where he ran a hotel at Second
and Main in 1812. He was very popular, and it is said that at his hotel
the food was cooked and served in the best old Virginia style. Charles
Taylor was sergeant's mate of the Second Virginia army and rose to rank
of sergeant of regulars of Convention Guards, Reuben Taylor was a minute
man for six years and rose to rank of captain. The tenth son, Benjamin
Taylor, served in the navy during the war. Practically all of these men
received large grants of lands for military service in the Revolutionary
war.
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These portraits of William Berry Taylor and his wife, Susannah Grayson
Harrison Gibson, are owned by their grandchildren, Betty, Fanny and Robert
Mallory, of Crescent Hill, whose father, the Hon. Robert Mallory, was a
member of Congress and prominent in the social and political life of his
day. William Berry Taylor was a son of Lieut. Jonathan Taylor, Revolutionary
soldier, and his wife, Anne Berry. Their home was "Spring Hill" in Oldham
county, and from them are descended many members of the Taylor connection
in Louisville. William Berry Taylor was a cousin and a warm personal
friend of President Taylor, who frequently visited his kinspeople at "Spring
Hill." Notably among the descendants of William Berry Taylor are
Admiral Robert Mallory Berry, U. S. N., a grandson, and Admiral Hugh Rodman,
U. S. N., K. C. B., a great-grandson.
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There are no more picturesque figures in the winning of
the West than the sons of Zachary Taylor and Elizabeth Lee. Richard Taylor
rendered valuable service in the Revolution, and his brother, Hancock Taylor,
belonged to Washington's company of Rangers. Both men stood six feet two
and weighed about 230 pounds. They made the first trading trip from Pittsburg
past the Falls of Ohio to the mouth of the Yazoo in 1769, and the same
year from Pittsburg in a canoe made a trip to New Orleans, where they embarked
for Charleston, S. C., walking thence to the Taylor home at Orange Courthouse.
Hancock Taylor was one of the early deputy surveyors under
William Preston and headed a party, including Willis Lee and Abraham Hapstonstall,
known to have made surveys in what is now Jefferson county, in May, 1774.
The following year Gov. Dunmore, becoming apprehensive for the safety of
the surveyors, ordered their recall, and Hancock Taylor received the summons
while laying off a tract near the Kentucky river for Col. William Christian.
He was, however, a victim of the Indians and, wounded by a shot from a
warrior's rifle, was carried by his companion Hapstonstall to a point near
Richmond, where he died and was buried by Hapstonstall, who carved his
name on the headstone with tomahawk. Taylor's dying request was that his
papers be carried to Preston in Virginia.
Hancock Taylor's will left two-thirds of all his lands
lying on Western waters to
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Hapstonstall and Willis Lee, and the remainder of his vast estate to
his brothers, Col. Richard and Capt. Zachary Taylor.
Col. Richard Taylor, whose wife was Sarah Dabney Strother,
came from Orange county, Va., to settle at Falls of the Ohio in the year
of 1785, bringing with him his family, including a son, Zachary, aged nine
months. Some biographers of this same Zachary, more interested in him,
however, as a President of the United States than as a youthful pioneer,
claim that Zachary was born at "Montebello," the house of some kinsmen
where the Taylors had been detained by illness of some member of their
party after leaving "Hare Forest," the ancestral home of the Taylor family.
Col. Richard Taylor established his family in a substantial
log house on a farm five miles east of Louisville, which was known as "Springfield."
Col. Taylor, who had been through the Revolution as a colonel in the First
Regiment of Virginia in the Continental Line, was soon a leader in affairs
in both city and State. He was a member of the Convention in Kentucky,
1792-99, and helped frame the first and second constitutions of the State;
he was one of the two men selected to have the first courthouse built in
Louisville and served on one of the early boards of
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trustees. He was evidently a man of wealth for he left his family a
handsome estate.
Zachary Taylor grew to manhood in the stirring times of
frontier clearing with Indian fighting as a matter of every-day life. At
eighteen he was a lieutenant in the army and eight years later he served
as a major in the War of 1812. The outbreak of the Mexican war found him
in command of the American forces in Louisiana and Texas, the crowning
battle of his campaign being Buena Vista in 1847. Dissatisfied with his
treatment by the administration, Major General Taylor resigned and came
to Louisville, living on a farm on the Brownsboro road in the months between
his retirement from the army and his election as the twelfth President
of the United States, He died in office on July 9, 1850.
Zachary Taylor was known to the army as "Old Rough and
Ready," because he was ready for any emergency and took the rough end of
every encounter, but he was also a man of culture and refinement.
The accompanying sketch of his family places him as a
man of gentle birth and breeding, and his connections are with the most
distinguished families of Virginia. One who knew him well described him
as a man of great tenderness of heart, of gentle manner, devoid of self-assertion;
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a silent man, but one whose dignity impressed all who came into his
presence. Such was the character of this most distinguished of the Taylor
family, whose name has been on every lip since the army cantonment named
Camp Zachary Taylor to do him honor was established here.
Zachary Taylor married Margaret Markall Smith, of
Maryland, a daughter of Major Walter Smith, U. S. A. To them were
born four children: Anne, who married Dr. Robert C. Wood, a surgeon of
the United States Army; Sarah Knox married Lieut. Jefferson Davis, afterward
President of the Confederacy; Elizabeth married Major William Bliss, U.
S. A., and later Philip Dandridge, of Virginia, and the only son was Gen.
Richard Taylor, of the Confederate army, who visited England after the
war and was given much attention. He moved to New Orleans, married and
had three daughters. There are in Louisville no descendants of Zachary
Taylor.
Col. Richard Taylor and his wife, Sarah Dabney Strother, had
a large family. Their son, Hancock Taylor, married Sophia Hoard and had
one son, William Dabney Strother Taylor, who married Jane Pollock Barbour,
and whose son, Hancock Taylor, a Confederate veteran, lives in Louisville.
His wife was Mary H. Wallace, and their children
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are: Margaret Barbour, who married Judge Arthur Wallace; Letty Hart,
the wife of the Rev. T. P. Grafton, missionary to China; Mary Strother
and William P. and Helen Wallace, who married James Quarles, missionary
in Argentina.
Hancock Taylor, brother of the President, married again
second wife being Annah Hornsby Lewis. One daughter was Mary Taylor Robinson,
who married Archibald Magill Robinson. Their son, Richard Goldsborough
Robinson, married Laura Pickett Thomas, and their children here are Eliza
Lee Robinson and Judge Harry Robinson. Another daughter, Mildred Taylor,
married John McLean, and their son, Hancock McLean, was the father of Mrs.
Louis D. Wallace, of Crescent Hill.
Edmund Taylor, the son of Hancock Taylor, married
Lou Barker and was the father of Lewis Taylor, who lives here. Another
son was Major Joseph Walter Taylor, who served in the Confederate Army
on Gen. Buckner's staff.
He married Lucy Bate and was the father of J. B. Taylor
and Jennie Taylor. His second wife was Ellen Bate, and his three daughters,
the Misses Taylor, live on the Brownsboro road. Another Confederate soldier
in the family of Hancock Taylor was Capt. Samuel Burks Taylor, who was
one of the Confederate officers
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captured and imprisoned with Gen. John Morgan in the Columbus, O., penitentiary.
It was Capt. Taylor who scaled the walls and made possible the escape of
the prisoners. He was never married.
Elizabeth Taylor, a sister of Gen. Zachary Taylor, married
her cousin, John Gibson Taylor, and had several children, only one of whom
is known to have a family here. This daughter, Sarah Taylor, who is buried
in the old family burying ground at Springfield, was the wife of Col. W.
R. Jouett, U. S. A., their children being: Fred Jouett and Lieut. Landon
Jouett, Margaret Dudley, who lives here, is a granddaughter. John Gibson
Taylor, Jr., was a Confederate soldier who was killed in action in one
of the Kentucky battles. Other sisters of Gen. Taylor married prominent
men and moved away from Louisville.
"Springfield," the Taylor home of 1785, was a substantial
log house to which a brick addition was built, and later a brick house
was added to the addition and the log building torn away. Hancock Taylor,
the elder brother of Gen. Taylor, had a home on the Eighteenth-street road,
but bought out the other heirs' interest in the old place and moved to
"Springfield," where he died. Hancock Taylor was in the tobacco business,
and as a young man was an Indian fighter.
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"Springfield" is now owned by Dr. John A. Brady. The monument erected
by the government in 1891, in memory of Gen. Taylor, is at "Springfield"
burying ground.
Capt. Zachary Taylor, brother of Hancock Taylor and Col.
Richard Taylor, married Alice Chew, of the well-known family of that name,
and settled on the forks of Hickman creek, in what is now Jessamine county.
His daughter, Sarah Taylor, married Richard Woolfolk, a Kentucky pioneer
identified with the early history of Jefferson county. It was he who caught
Col. William Christian in his arms when that pioneer fell, a victim of
the Indians. After the death of his wife Capt. Taylor came to the Woolfolk
home, in Jefferson county, eight miles from Louisville, on land between
Harrod's creek and the Ohio river.
Samuel Woolfolk, a son of Richard and Sarah Woolfolk,
was a well-known lawyer. His wife was Carrie Thornton, by whom he had five
sons. Richard Henry Woolfolk, one of these, married Amanda Enders, of Paducah,
and their son, Junius Woolfolk, lives in this city.
A son of Lieut. Jonathan and Anne Berry Taylor was William
Berry Taylor, born 1768, who married Susannah Grayson Harrison Gibson,
settling in Oldham county, then Shelby county, in 1796, on a thousand acres
of land
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bought from his uncle, Col. Francis Berry. They built the home, "Spring
Hill," the first brick house in the county, and the home remained in possession
of the family until last year. From Spring Hill, Gen. Zachary Taylor, with
one his daughters and with his cousin, Betsy Taylor, who married Dr. William
Willett, of the Bullitt family, rode on horseback to Frankfort to attend
the first assembly ball, taking their evening clothes in their saddle bags.
Abraham Hapstonstall, the surveyor, spent the declining
years of his life in the homes of Hancock Taylor and of William Berry Taylor
He is buried in the Taylor family burying ground at Spring Hill."
Several of the Revolutionary brothers, son of Col. George
Taylor, were pioneer settlers in Kentucky, and from time to time their
descendants
have drifted into Louisville from the Bluegrass, from Eastern Kentucky
and from the neighboring counties. Among these Kentucky Taylors now in
the city are the following Mrs. John W. Green, Mrs. Alexander
McLennan, Mrs. Jack Langhorne Brent, Judge George Brent, Dr. E. R. Palmer,
Mr. Edmund F. Trabue, Miss Alice Trabue, Col. William Colston, Mr. T. P.
Taylor, Mrs. E. Polk Johnson, James Berry,Mrs. Robert Brooke, Miss Ruth
Rodman, Mrs. Sam Overstreet, Mrs. T. J. Howe,
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Mr. Horace Hurley, Mr. Frank Barbour, Mrs. James Hegan, Dr. John B.
Richardson, Mr. Samuel B. Richardson, Mrs. Harrison Robertson, Mrs. Thos.
Kennedy Helm, Miss Addie Meriwether, Mr. Edmund Taylor Meriwether, Mrs.
Baylor Hickman, Mrs. Gilbert Garrard, Mrs. Thomas R. Gordon, Mrs. Arthur
Peter, Mrs. Karl Jungbluth, Jr., Mrs. J. K. Woodward, Miss Betty Mallory,
Miss Fanny Mallory, Mr. Robert Mallory, Dr. R. A. Bate, Mr. Virginius Bate,
Mrs. Cora Taylor Russell, Edward G. Isaacs, Mrs. Robert Herr, Mrs. S. E.
Frazee, Mrs. Joseph Simmons, Mrs. Herman D. Newcomb, Mrs. Arthur Peter,
Darwin Ward Johnson, Mrs. Kate Johnson Lester, Donald Jacob, John I. Jacob,
Wallace Taylor Hughes, William B. Eagles, Nannie Lee Frayser, Mrs. Barber
Baldwin, Mrs. John Cannon, Dr. and Mrs. John Taylor, Rebecca Taylor, Sallie
Taylor, Lucy Catherine Taylor, James Hughes and Mrs. George Grevemeyer.
In many instances the members of the Taylor family are descendants of two
branches of the family.
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