John Taylor

(c1813 – by1880)

 

I know almost nothing about this man, in part due to his distressingly common name.

 

A family Bible shows the birthplace of one of his sons (in 1841) as Walker County, Georgia.[1]  The 1850 census for Walker County shows that son, and four other children, in the household of John Taylor, age 36, and his wife Sarah, age 26.[2]  The birthplace of both John and Sarah is given as South Carolina.

 

John Taylor was not in the 1840 census of Walker County, suggesting that he moved there after 1840.  The eldest child in the 1850 household was age 11, born in Georgia, so he was probably elsewhere in the state in 1840.  There are 31 persons named John Taylor heading households in the 1840 census of Georgia, none of whom match the profile of our man (so far as I have checked to date).

 

Sometime in the late 1850s John Taylor moved 50-odd miles southwest into Marshall County, Alabama near its border with Jackson, and DeKalb counties.  The 1860 Marshall County census shows John Taylor and Sarah in the vicinity of Guntersville. [3]  The two eldest sons have left the household, and several children born after 1850 are added.  A child born ca1858 was born in Georgia but a daughter born in April 1860 was born in Alabama, suggesting that they had only recently moved into the state.

 

I did not find this family in the 1870 census.  Neither they nor their son William are enumerated anywhere in Alabama or Georgia.  I suspect they were simply skipped by the census takers.[4]  By 1880 John Taylor was dead.  The 1880 census of DeKalb County, Alabama shows Sarah Taylor, a widow, as head of household with two daughters and a grandson.[5]  She is located near Lebanon, in eastern DeKalb County a few miles south of her son William F. Taylor.

 

 

1.      James F. Taylor (c1838 - ?) He is in the 1850 household, age 11, but does not appear in the family’s 1860 household.  Nor is there a James Taylor in the vicinity of his parents or back in Walker County.  In fact, I can find no one in 1860, 1870, or 1880 who might be this person.  The grandson John Taylor in Sarah Taylor’s 1880 household may have been this man’s son, for only he and William were old enough to have  a son born in 1861.

2.      William F. Taylor (19 February 1841 – 28 April 1914)  See separate page.

3.      Mary J. Taylor (c1844 - ?)  She is in the household in 1850, 1860,  and (still unmarried) in 1880.

4.      Elizabeth L. Taylor (c1846 - ?)  She is in the 1850 and 1860 household of her parents.  It seems likely that she is the Elizabeth L. Taylor who married W. J. Jones on 23 June 1870 in DeKalb County.

5.      Zachariah C. Taylor (c1848 - ?)  He is in the 1850 and 1860 households.  I could find no trace of him in 1870 or 1880 in any state.

6.      Martha A. Taylor (c1853 - ?) She was in the 1860 household, but not found thereafter.

7.      [Son] (c1855 - ?)  This son was in the 1860 household as a four-year old male “not named”.  It is possible that he was the Henry S. Taylor, age 24, located seven households away from Sarah Taylor in 1880.

8.      Francis Taylor (c1857 - ?)  This son was aged 2 in 1860 but was not in his mother’s 1880 household.

9.      Georgia Taylor (April 1860 - ?)  She was aged two months in 1860 (supposedly as of June), and was age 20 in the 1880 household.