Hardin Edwards Taliaferro (1811 - 1875)

Born 4 Mar 1811 in Surry, North Carolina, United States

Ancestors

Died 2 Nov 1875 at age 64 in Loudon, Roane, Tennessee, United States

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Biography

Rev. Hardin Edwards Taliaferro, author of "Fisher's River Scenes and Characters" (1859).

Mark "Hardin Edwards" Taliaferro was born on March 4, 1811, in Surry, North Carolina, his father, Charles, was 48 and his mother, Sarah, was 41. He married Elizabeth Henderson on October 21, 1839, in Roane, Tennessee. He died on November 2, 1875, in Loudon, Tennessee, at the age of 64, and was buried in Loudon, Tennessee.^[1]

Hardin Edwards Taliaferro

Hardin Edwards Taliaferro was a native of North Carolina, born on March 4, 1811, to Charles and Sallie (Burroughs) Taliaferro. He had been born Mark Hardin Taliaferro, but by 1829, he had traveled to Roane County, Tennessee, where his two brothers, Charles and Richard, were serving as a pastor and evangelist, and he had changed his birth name to Hardin Edwards Taliaferro. While living with Charles, Taliaferro learned the tanning trade, was converted, felt called to preach and entered Madisonville Academy.

During this time, Taliaferro met Samuel Henderson and his sister, Eliza, whom Taliaferro married in 1833. They moved to Talladega County in 1835, where he served small churches and owned a tanning business. He wrote articles for the Alabama, Georgia and Virginia Baptist papers, and along the way he wrote of his deep spiritual struggles in a piece called The Grace of God magnified: An Experimental Tract. Eventually he joined his brother-in-law, Henderson, as editor of the South Western Baptist in 1855, moving his family to Tuskegee by 1856.

On July 31, 1859, Taliaferro and John Edmunds Dawson combined their talents and assumed ownership and editorship of the paper. He maintained a supportive role, with Dawson writing most of the more spirited denominational and secular commentaries.

Dawson, a native Georgian, was recognized as a commanding person and gifted orator in the pulpit. He served Mercer University as a trustee and endowment fund agent, and he received the institution’s Doctor of Divinity in 1858. In July 1860, Dawson left because of his poor health and died in November. While editing the paper, Taliaferro completed Fisher’s River North Carolina, Scenes and Characters, the stories of its people and places, under his penname Skitt. It was anonymously published in 1859 by Harper & Brothers.

Taliaferro persevered with the newspaper, but by 1862, the war had taken an emotional and financial toll on his family, and he relinquished editorship and ownership. The paper survived when Henderson arrived to take the reins, with Taliaferro occasionally contributing articles.

Following the war, Taliaferro worked with new black churches in East Alabama in the Cross Keys and Mount Meigs communities, assisting and training members and leaders while editing The Tuskegee News. In 1873, he and his wife returned to Loudon, Tennessee, where he died November 2, 1875, leaving their daughters, Nancy and Adelaide, in Alabama.^[2]

Census

1860 US Census: Southern Division, Macon, Alabama, United States

H E Talliaferro Male 49 No Ca Baptist Minister

Emily Talliaferro Female 19 Tennessee [Eliza? Nancy was living in Calhoun County with her husband in 1860]

Adalaide Talliaferro Female 19 Ala^[3]

1870 US Census, Tuskegee, Macon, Alabama

H E Taliaferro Male 59 North Carolina Baptist Minister

E. Taliaferro Female 57 Tennessee [note: someone at FamilySearch indexed her as E.B. The original reads E. only] Keeps House

A. Taliaferro Female 26 Alabama [note: someone at FamilySearch indexed her as Andrew. The original reads A. only.] Keeps House.^[4]

Family

Elizabeth Taliaferro - wife

Nancy Jane Ham - daughter

Adelaide Weaver - daughter

Sallie Taliaferro - mother

Charles Taliaferro - father

Charles Hardin Taliaferro - brother

Richard Henry Taliaferro - brother

John Taliaferro - brother

Dickerson Taliaferro - brother

Elizabeth 'Bettie' Taliaferro - sister

Benjamin Taliaferro - brother

Mary Taliaferro - sister

Notes

A family tree says he died in Roane County, Tennessee, in which case he may be buried at Prospect Baptist Church where many of his relatives were interred, though it is unlikely.

In 1850 he lived in Talladega, Talladega County, Alabama; in 1860 and 1870 in Tuskeegee, Macon County, Alabama. In 1880, his widow Elizabeth Henderson Taliaferro lived with her daughter Nancy in Oxford, Calhoun County, Alabama, very near Talladega. It is likely he is buried in Tuskeegee rather than Loudon County, Tennessee, but interment is unverified.

Sources

1. ↑ Find a Grave Index [1]
2. ↑ https://alerts.thealabamabaptist.org/2018/01/24/who-were-editors-taliaferro-renfroe-and-winkler/
3. ↑ https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MHD8-B9K
4. ↑ https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MHKN-3K1

• Hardin Edwards Taliaferro in NCPedia [2]
• Hardin E. Taliaferro, 1811-1875 (pseud. Skitt), from DICTIONARY OF NORTH CAROLINA BIOGRAPHY edited by William S. Powell [3]
• Taliaferro Family Offers Rich Trove of History [4]
• Wikipedia [5]