Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/121

 TAYLOR

TAYLOR

Calvert county. Her ancestor came from Eng- land to Maryland in 1649, and held the appoint- ment of attorney-general from Oliver Cromwell in 1655. Her grandmother Mackall lived on one of the family plantations named by her ancestor, "God's Graces." One of her brothers, Richard Smith, belonged to the U.S. marine corps, two of her brothers removed to Mississippi, where they were extensive planters, and her two sisters removed to Kentucky and married two brothers of the Chew family of Maryland. Margaret Smith was married toCapt. Zachary Taylor, June 18, 1810, and at once went with him to the frontier of the Northwest territorj-, and she thereafter shared the hardships and dangers of army life up to the time he was ordered to Mexico, when she remained with lier cliildren at the home they had established at Baton Rouge, La. The temporal and spiritual needs of the sick and wounded soldiers were her chief solici- tude, and the rude hospital accommodations of the day were made more attractive and restful through her ministrations. Mrs. Jefferson Davis records an incident at a White House dinner in 1849, at which all the parties interested were pres- ent, when President Taylor, speaking to Sen- ator Davis of his army life said: " You know my wife was as much of a soldier as I was." She had four childi-en, Anne, Sarah Knox, Elizabeth and Richard. Anne married Dr. Robert C. Wood, surgeon-general, U.S.A., and had four children, John Taylor, Robert C, Anna Dudle\", and Sarah Knox Wood. Sarah Knox Taylor married Jeffer- son Davis, at the time a lieutenant in the U.S.A. Elizabeth married Colonel Bliss, adjutant on the staff of General Taylor, and after his death she was married to Philip Dandridge of Virginia. When the family removed to Washington, in February, 18-49, Mrs. Taylor was in feeble health, and physically unable to take part in the state din- ners and receptions at the AVhite House, but she was always at the private table and in the home circle, leaving the cares of official hospitality to her daughter Elizabeth, wife of Col. William W. S. Bliss. Mrs. Taylor did not long survive the shock incident to her husband's sudden death and the excitement of a martial funeral. She removed, upon her husband's death, to the home of her son. Col. Richard Taylor, near Pascagoula, La., where she died, Aug. 18, 1852.

TAYLOR, Richard, father of President Taylor (familiarh' known as " Dick Taylor"), was born in eastern Virginia, March 22, 1744; a descendant of James Taylor, who came from England in 1682, and settled in southern Virginia. Richard's love of adventui'e carried him to the unexplored coun- try west of the Alleghenies, before he reached liis majority, and he crossed Kentucky to the Mississippi valley, thence to Natchez, a tradin^:

post, and from there northward through the trackless forest afoot and alone back to his father's home in Virginia. He commanded a Virginia regiment in the Revolution, and was a field officer on Washington's personal force. He was married Aug. 20, 1779, to Sarah Strother, then nineteen, and settled on a plantation near Orange Court House. They had three children, Zachary being less than one year old when they crossed the mountains into Kentucky and settled on the Beargrass Creek at the place known afterward as Springfield, six miles from the present site of Louisville, a point selected by the elder brother, Hancock (a surveyer of wild lands), who had pre- ceded the family to the new territory. President Washington made Colonel Taylor collector of the port of Louisville, then a port of entry, Louisiana being foreign territory. He was a delegate to the state constitutional convention, a presidential district elector on the Madison ticket in 1813; elector-at-large on the Monroe ticket in 1817; district elector on the Monroe ticket in 1821, and elector-at-large on the Henry Clay ticket in 1825. Col. Dick Taylor died at " Springfield," Ky., 1826. TAYLOR, Richard, soldier, was born in Baton Rouge, La., Jan. 27, 1826; son of Lieut. -Col. Zacliary and Margaret (Smith) Taylor. He at- tended school at Fort Snelling, in Jefferson county, Ky., and in Edinburgh, Scotland, 1839-42, and in Paris, France, 1842-43. He matric- ulated at Yale in the junior class, 1843, and was graduated in 1845. He at once joined his father on the Rio Grande and continued with the army until after the battle of Resaca de la Palma, when, being attacked by fever, he returned to his home at Baton Rouge, and subse- quently engaged in

cotton planting on a plantation in Jefferson county. Miss. In 1849 he transferred his plant- ing operations to St. Charles parish. La., where he conducted an extensive sugar plantation. He was married in 1851, to Myrthe Bringier de Lacadiere. He represented St. Charles parish as state senator, 1856-60, and was a delegate to the Democratic national conventions at Charleston, S.C. . and Baltimore, Md., in 1860. He was a mem- ber of the state convention of 1861 that declared for secession, and was madeamember of the mili- tary committee. He was commissioned colonel of the 9th Louisiana volunteers, and after serving