John William Taylor Sr. (abt. 1607 - abt. 1652)

Born about 10 Aug 1607 in Carlisle, Cumberland, England

Ancestors

Husband of Elizabeth Lee (Hornton) Taylor — married about 1624 in England

Descendants

Died about 16 Aug 1652 at about age 45 in Lancaster, Colony of Virginia

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Biography

John Taylor Sr. was born in England.

John Taylor Sr. was a Virginia colonist.

He was born about 1607 in England.

John Taylor married in England to Elizabeth Lee Hornton (daughter of Isabell [Freeman] and William Hornton) and they had about 10 children including:

1. Taylor Richard #1 b.1625 Hadleigh, Suffolk Co, England d.1650 North Farnham Parish, Richmond Co, VA
2. Taylor John b.1627 Hadleigh, Suffolk Co, England d.5 Apr 1702 Wicomico Parish, Northumberland Co, VA
3. Taylor Robert b.1630 Hadleigh, Suffolk Co, England d.1700
4. Taylor William b.1632-1638 Hadleigh, Suffolk Co, England
5. Taylor James I., Col. b.12 Feb 1634/35 Earl Hare, Carlisle, Northumberland, England d.30 Apr 1698 Caroline Co, VA
6. Taylor Thomas b.1637 Hadleigh, Suffolk Co, England d.1687 VA
7. Taylor Elizabeth b.1645, England +Simon SALLARD
8. Taylor Richard #2 b.1650 VA d.1669 VA

In 1648 John Taylor and his wife Elizabeth emigrated to Virginia with 3 of their youngest children, including daughter Elizabeth b.1645. ^[1] They left six sons (aged 11 to 23) in England who would join them later in Virginia.

Lancaster County was the original Northern Neck county in Virginia. The origins of this John Taylor are unknown and there is no evidence to connect any colonial immigrant Taylors to the English family of Rowland Taylor, the priest who was martyred in England.

Their older sons in England became part of the great exile of Cavaliers ordered by Cromwell, and they brought their teenage siblings to Virginia with them. ^{[2] [3]}

In 1650 their son Richard Taylor and his five younger brothers arrived in Virginia, on various ships at different times, over a period of eight months. Soon after their family was reunited in Virginia, this Richard died in 1650 in North Farnham Parish, Richmond County, Virginia. The same year of 1650, Elizabeth and John Taylor had a son born in Northumberland County, Virginia, who they named Richard, in honour of their recently deceased son Richard, the elder.

John Taylor also soon died in August 1652, ^[4] leaving his widow Elizabeth to care for their youngest children including daughter Elizabeth, aged seven and Richard, aged two. This John Taylor’s estate is the earliest probated estate, which survives from the Northern Neck, for an individual with the surname of Taylor.

Probate and court records confirm John Taylor of Lancaster County, Virginia and his wife Elizabeth had at least ^{[5] [6]}

- a son Richard Taylor, who died as a teenager, and

- a daughter Elizabeth Taylor, who married Simon SALLARD.

By October 1654 his widow Elizabeth had remarried to Tobias Horton and they undertook a settlement inventory of John Taylor’s estate. The lot was valued at 9,590 pounds of tobacco (the common medium of exchange) and included “three old Bibles and seventy other books”, evidence of John’s education in England. Five years later in 1659 Horton paid off the last of John Taylor’s debt of 6,173 pounds of tobacco.

"In the same year [1654], Elizabeth Horton, wife of Tobias Horton, and relict of John Taylor, deceased, asks for her dower in her deceased husband's estate". ^[6]

His widow Elizabeth died on 28 Feb 1659 in Lancaster County, Virginia.

His son Richard Taylor was mentioned in the October 1668 Will of his step-father, Tobias Horton.

The last Will of Tobias Horton, in Lancaster County, Virginia mentioned:

- wife, Elizabeth

- son, Tobias

- daughter, Rebecca

- son-in-law, Richard Taylor

- witness: Fortunatus Snydor.

This Richard Taylor died intestate before 22 May 1669, when his sister Elizabeth (Taylor) SALLARD was found to be his sole heir and took administration of his estate and inherited his land.

Research Notes

The lineage of John Taylor was investigated by a professional genealogist, Nathaniel Lane Taylor, PhD, who found that a link to Rev. Rowland Taylor and two sons named Richard to be baseless. Two of his articles published in "The American Genealogist" magazine include:

1. "The False and Possibly True English Origins of Richard Taylor ^[7]
2. "An American Taylor Family: Descendants of Richard Taylor (d. 1679) ^[5]

Another widely-circulated amateur work by Brewer alleges a completely different ancestry for Richard Taylor of North Farnham, Virginia, ^[8] asserting that this Richard was a son of John Taylor of Lancaster County, Virginia at the mouth of the Rappahannock River and died before 1653. This John was in turn, stated to be a descendant of Reverend Dr. Rowland Taylor, ^[5] chaplain to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and rector of Hadleigh, Suffolk County, England, who was burned at the stake in Feb 1555 as a Protestant under the persecutions of the Catholic Queen Mary ("Bloody Mary") and who was enshrined as one of the heroes of early Protestant martyrology. Rowland Taylor’s imprisonment and execution were glorified in maudlin detail in the famous "Protestant Martyrology Acts and Monuments" by John Foxe.

The Brewer book also links to other early TAYLORs of Virginia to the same stem namely ^[5]:

- Andrew Taylor of Spotsylvania County, Virginia, as well as

- the immigrant James Taylor of New Kent County, Virginia (later King and Queen) County, ancestor of President Zachary Taylor.

Brewer presents NO evidence for any of these three claimed filiations.

This biography was auto-generated by a GEDCOM import. Taylor-19430 was created by Bob Nichol through the import of ozmeister.ged on May 15, 2014.

Aka: John The Immigrant Taylor

Father: Captain Thomas Taylor, married 9 Oct 1599 at Hadleigh (which is not extant), Middlesex, London, England. Hadleigh is not a place in Middlesex. It is a place in Suffolk, where there are Taylor ancestors.

Siblings: Colonel James "The Elder" Taylor; Ann Taylor.

Sources

1. ↑ "Early Virginia Immigrants 1623-1666" by Greer citing "Immigration List of 1648".
2. ↑ "Immigration List of 1650" by Greer.
3. ↑ Jouett Taylor Prisley family history and genealogy.
4. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/219294247/john-william-taylor : accessed 17 August 2021), memorial page for Colonel John William Taylor (10 Aug 1607–16 Aug 1652), Find a Grave Memorial ID 219294247, citing Wicomico Parish Church Cemetery, Wicomico Church, Northumberland County, Virginia, USA ; Maintained by Arlis Grave ID 49703418 (contributor 49703418) .
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3} "An American TAYLOR Family: Descendants of Richard Taylor (d. 1679) of North Farnham Parish in the Northern Neck of Virginia, for Seven Generations" p4 by Nathaniel Lane Taylor, FASG (1992-2015).
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1} "The Taylor Family of Northumberland and Lancaster Counties, Virginia" published in 1927 in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 35(2) p211-218.
7. ↑ "The False and Possibly True English Origins of Richard Taylor of Old Rappahannock County, Virginia", The American Genealogist 83(2009):161–73, 278–91
8. ↑ "From Log Cabins to the White House: a History of the Taylor Family" by Mary Taylor Brewer, published in 1985 Wooton, Kentucky.

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