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Ancestor of Zachary Taylor 12th US President
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James II is assumed to have been born in New Kent Co., Virginia, since that is where his father is first found on record in the Colonies in 1675. [1] He died in that portion of Spotsylvania Co. that was formed from King and Queen Co. and later became Orange Co.
The following narrative, written in 2001, is taken from Jouett Taylor Prisley's family history and genealogy papers. [2]
James and Martha built a house in 1722 on the western frontier of Virginia slightly east of Orange. As of 2015, it still exists in prime restored order, furnished with period antiques, and privately owned, but not occupied, by a descendant of James II, along with thousands of acres of Orange County, approximating the original Taylor land grant. More than one-third of Orange County was still called, in the latter 1900s “the Taylor District,” and so marked on maps.
James and Martha had nine children, the few eldest not born there at Bloomsbury but most reared there: [3]
NOTE: There is an additional daughter, Margaret Taylor, listed on many family trees but, due to the fact that she is not listed in the Taylor family Bible and her birth does not "fit within the other children, She has been removed as a daughter.
Each grew to adulthood and married. James and Martha had the unrivaled distinction of being great-grandparents of two U.S. Presidents: James Madison, “Father of the Constitution,” and Zachary Taylor, hero of Palo Alto, Monterey, and Buena Vista in the Mexican War. James and Martha would also become great-great grandparents of the first wife Sarah Knox Taylor of the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. She died of cholera (or malaria) early in their marriage and had no children.
James II was the only surviving son of his father James I and first wife, whose name we do not know (but who is often claimed to be Frances Walker). James II was six and his sister Sarah four when their mother died. Two years later, James’s father married again and had four more surviving children. James II would have been 24 when his father died, and 25 when he married Martha in 1699.
James was a man of good reputation, and of substance, both in wealth and intellect. He was colonel of a militia regiment; from 1702 to 1714, he was a member of the House of Burgesses from King and Queen County; in 1704 he owned 4,000 acres in St. Stephen’s Parish of New Kent County, where he was a vestryman; he was Surveyor General of the Colony of Virginia; and he at times also served as Sheriff and Justice of the Peace. Charles Campbell mentions James II as “a kindly man, opposed to the persecution of dissenters,” primarily Baptists.[4]
In locating the county lines for Spotsylvania, Caroline, and Orange counties, Taylor was able to acquire a baronial estate (in land) of approximately one-third of Orange County, called the ”Taylor District.” Trained and licensed at William and Mary, James was one of two surveyors for Spotsylvania County. About the time of his death, James II's son, James III, received a court order to return his father’s plat book. Much later the first survey book of Caroline County turned up in the Clerk of Court’s office in Campbell County, Kentucky, apparently taken there by a migrating Taylor.
In 1715, James presented an impressive sundial to “the Upper Church of St. Stephen’s Parish,” in New Kent Co. It was bronze, octagonal, measuring 14 inches across the face and bearing a gift inscription from said donor to recipient. The maker, John Bowen, and the place, Bristol, England, are identified, and the latitude of its original location, “38 degrees, 00.” When the church was abandoned in 1800, the sundial was removed to safekeeping by a family of the parish. Heirs of that family, 125 years later, restored the piece to the Episcopal Diocese of Richmond where it was mounted on the lawn of Mayo Memorial Church House, diocesan headquarters since 1926. It was then removed from Richmond in 1955, and at some time later was installed in an appropriately historic setting at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in King and Queen County.
James was one of 63 men chosen to accompany Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood in 1716 for the Tramontane Expedition. Purposing to track headwaters of Virginia’s rivers, claim land for the Crown, name and chart geographical sites and observe Indian tribes, Spotswood dubbed his men “Knights of the Golden Horseshoe,” and on ending their travel, presented them with symbolic certificates and watch chain emblems of gold and diamonds in the shape of a horseshoe. An expedition log kept by Lt. John Fontaine tells of the country’s great beauty, and named the only hazards as the occasional bees or snakes.[5] [6]
Authorities in Williamsburg have cited Bloomsbury as the house farthest west in the colony of Virginia at the time it was built between 1720-1722. They also think the original porch, framed into the structure, may be the earliest such architecture known to survive in Virginia. As of the 1990s, the little home was beautifully preserved and accommodated visits by James's descendants through the owner Helen Marie Taylor.
At the time Bloomsbury was under construction Taylor was 48 and he and Martha had eight children, from 22 down to four years. Eldest daughters Frances and Martha were still at home, engaged to be married. The ninth child, Mildred was born two years after the family occupied their new home.
Some years before James II’s death he presented Bloomsbury to his eldest son, James III, and at the same time provided adjacent 1,000 acre parcels for his sons Zachary, George, and Erasmus. Estimates vary on when James II gave Bloomsbury to his eldest son, James III, but it was probably in 1722, seven years before James II's death.
James and Martha are buried at Greenfield.
The dates of birth and death for James Taylor "the Younger" are recorded differently in a Taylor family Bible and in a Taylor family tree:
The James Taylor I Descendants Association uses dates from an Ancestry.com source listed as "The Colburn Family of Dedham" that match the years on the linen family tree: b. 14 Mar 1674, d. 23 Jun 1729. [9]
It appears probable that the difference between the two sets of dates is attributable to the change in 1752 from the "old style" Julian calendar to the "new style" Gregorian calendar,[10] along with a transposition of the month of death from "Jan" to "Jun" (or vice-versa). The family tree dates of 1674-1729 indicate that it was written before 1752 or perhaps soon after using sources with the O.S. dates; and the family Bible was started after 1752 using the N.S. dates. It seems more likely that James died in January, which would account for the difference in the O.S./N.S. year of death. Had he died in June, the O.S. and N.S. years would have been the same since the O.S. new year occurred on March 25th.
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Featured National Park champion connections: James is 11 degrees from Theodore Roosevelt, 18 degrees from Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, 12 degrees from George Catlin, 10 degrees from Marjory Douglas, 18 degrees from Sueko Embrey, 11 degrees from George Grinnell, 23 degrees from Anton Kröller, 14 degrees from Stephen Mather, 20 degrees from Kara McKean, 13 degrees from John Muir, 13 degrees from Victoria Hanover and 21 degrees from Charles Young on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.
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