Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/640

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

(lay. James Taylor must have been a young man when he set foot in the greatly harassed colony of Jamestown, since his son, John Taylor, who carries on the line we are tra- cing, was not born for thirty-eight years thereafter.

(II ) Of John Taylor, the first of the name to be born on \'irginia soil, we are not in a position to say much. He was born in the year 1696. This we know and some other elementary facts from the old records, which have been preserved in considerable volume by the old parish and court documents, which have found their way into a great number of libraries, both public and private. Of this John Taylor we also know that he married Catherine Pendleton, of the Mr- ginia colony, and that of the ten children born to this union one, George Edmond, was the ancestor of the present Taylor fam- ily.

(III) George Edmond Taylor, son of John and Catherine (Pendleton) I'aylor, was born in his parent's home in the colony of \''irginia. He was a prominent man in the community, and had conferred upon him the Order of the Golden Horseshoe. In spite of his undoubted prominence we know but little more of him than of his father. He married Anne Lewis, and doubt- less lived to witness the revolution.

(IV) P^dmond Taylor, son of George Ed- mond and Anne ( Lewis ) Taylor, was born August t6, 1 74 1. He was still a young man when the momentous- change occurred which changed his native A'irginia and all her sister communities from colonies to in- dependent states, which in their new found brotherhood joined to form the greatest con- federation of states ever seen in the world. Mr. Taylor married Ann Day, of Virginia, and thus introduced into the blood of his descendants a strain of one of the proudest and most distinguished of the Virginia fam- ilies. Mrs. Edmond Taylor was a daughter of IMajor Day. a revolutionary officer who conducted himself with great gallantry in that sanguinary struggle, and served on the stafif of General Washington himself.

(V) William Day Taylor, son of EdmcMid and -Aim (Day) Taylor, was born in Han- over county, Virginia, in the year 1781. At the time of his birth N'irginia was a sov- ereign ])ower c'lnd one of the United States, although the Treaty of Paris was not con- summated until two vears later, nor the

evacuation of New York by the liritish. His youth was passed among those stirring years just subsequent to the revolution, when the institutions of the new nation were still in the process for formation and the brilliant intellects and forceful men of the day were bending every effort to give them permanence in one direction or another, as their beliefs and convictions directed. With one of these moulders of the Union, the life of W illiam Day Taylor led him close into association. This was Chief Justice Mar- shall, whose genius was responsible to so large an extent in giving the Supreme Court of the United States its unique posi- tion among the courts of the world. Mr. Taylor married a niece of the great chief justice. Eli/a Adams Marshall, a daughter of William Marshall. Mr. Taylor was in politics affiliated with the Whig party, and thus in sympathy with his distinguished connections. He lived on the ancestral es- tate, and following the habits of his forbears occupied himself as a planter, cultivating the s])lendid estate that was his inheritance. In religion he was an Episcopalian, and in this profession of faith he was also follow- ing the traditions of his family. He and his wife were the parents of several children, some of them as follows: James Marshall, John Randolph and George Keith.

(VI) James Marshall Taylor, oldest son of W^illiam Day and Eliza Adams (Mar- shall) Taylor, was born in Hanover county, A'irginia. April 27, 1822. Like his father before him. and indeed all his forbears, he cultivated the family estate, or rather that portion of it which fell to his share, but he did not pass his life upon his farm as largely as had his ancestors. At the breaking out of the civil war in 1861, Mr. Taylor enlisted in the Confederate army, and had charge of the ambulance train between Eredericksburg and Richmond. He was, as his father had been before him, a staunch member of the Whig party, and became by appointment clerk to the treasurer of the state of \'ir- ginia. He was a member of the Episcopal church. James Marshall Taylor married Isabel de Leon Jacobs, a native of Rich- mond. \'irginia. where she was born in March, 1822. Mrs. Taylor was a daughter of Solomon B. and Hetty (Nones) Jacobs, of Richm(~)nd, her maternal grandfather be- ing Major Benjamin Nones, of revolutionary war renown. Their wedding was celebrated