James W Taylor (1805 - 1885)

Born 8 Sep 1805 in South Carolina

Ancestors

Died 22 Mar 1885 at age 79 in Silver City, Mills, Iowa, United States

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Biography

James was born in 1805. He was the son of Barzilla Taylor and Frances Johnson. He passed away in 1855.

James W. Taylor,(1805-1885)was the eldest known son of Barzilla and Fanny Johnson Taylor,he was brother Pleasant Taylor. Known names of other siblings were, Nancy, James, Mary, Thomas, Frances, Lucinda, and Teezly Barzilla.

James married Malinda Foster. They moved to southern Illinois, where his son John J. was born on July 5, 1833.

He was back in Indiana before the birth of his daughter Lavina Nancy in 1835. His wife Malinda died in 1836 and his children then lived with his mother Fanny, until 1853, when his son, John J. moved to Iowa and Nancy married Cornelius McCarty.

Pleasant Taylor( brother of James)left for Clark County, Illinois, in 1836 and it is believed James went with him. By 1846 James was in Missouri where he volunteered for service in the Mexican War.

He was purported to have served in Price's Brigade, Missouri Infantry, sometime during the years of 1846 to 1848. There are no official records of his service in the Mexican War, either state or national. There is a G.A.R. marker on his grave. By 1850 he was back in Montgomery County living with his mother Fanny, and second wife, Martha Simms, whom he married on June 14, 1849. Martha A. Simms, a native of Indiana was a sister of Matilda Simms who had married James' younger brother Thomas Taylor. On the 1850 census it showed that they had one daughter Mahala, born in February of 1850. On Dec 9, 1856, James gave Thomas a warranty deed for his share of his mother,Fanny Johnson Taylor's farm for, four hundred dollars.

After this transaction the only trace we have been able to find in on the 1860 census of Pottawattomie County, Iowa, where he, James and his son John J. (called Jackson at this time) were again living with James' brother Pleasant.

He lists his occupation as a farmer. There is no trace of his wife Martha, or daughter Mahala after 1856, when Martha co-signed the deed he gave (his brother) Thomas Taylor.

Pleasant, his sons, James and William, and John J. all went to Montana in the early 1860's,(there is a story as to why, but that is for later)....whether Pleasant's brother James went with them or not is unknown.

James died when he was eighty years old, at the home of his son, John J. in Silver City,Mills County, Iowa, on March 22, 1885. He is buried in the Silver City Cemetery, Lot 73, beside his son, John J. "Jackson" ________________________________________

John J. Taylor was born on July 5, 1833 in Illinois to James W. Taylor and his wife, Malinda Foster. He came to Iowa in 1861 and Silver City in 1880.

He was a farmer, he operated a General Store, and he was a bank director.

He was a member of the Masonic Lodge and the Methodist Church. He married on September 17, 1863, to Martha L. Bratton. They had four children: Mary and Florence died young, John Band and Mattie E(llen or Elizabeth). They moved to Tabor in later life to be near their children, and Martha died on May 18, 1936, both being buried in Silver City. There is more detailed information on the children and family.

Source: Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa -1875 by A. T. Andrews; Family History book titled, 'On The Taylor Trail', compiled by Mrs. Ardis Taylor.

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Silver City Times (September 17, 1927)

Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Taylor, who recently celebrated their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary at Tabor, have had an eventful life, teeming with experiences of which the young people of today can only read about.

J. J. Taylor was born in southern Illinois, on July 5, 1833. He moved to Indiana, then to Missouri. When he was three years old his mother died. The father then moved back to Indiana, where the father remarried when J. J. Taylor was fifteen years old. From that time on he looked out for himself and tried to get an education. When he was twenty years old (in 1853), he came to Pottawattamie County. He was married September 17, 1863, to Martha Bratton in Pottawattamie County. The following year, April 1864, he drove oxen across the plains to Helena Montanta, where he worked in the Virginia City mine. It took 110 ten days to make the trip, which can be made in a few hours today, as Lindbergh travels. Mrs. Taylor remained in Iowa. When he returned the family lived in Pottawattamie County for some time, later moving to Silver City where Mr. Taylor was in the mercantile business for many years. Four children were born to Mr. and Mr. Taylor, only two now living-Mattie E. Mauk and John B. Taylor, both of Tabor. After Mr. Taylor retired from active work, he and Mrs. Taylor moved to Tabor to be near their children......For eight years Mr. Taylor has been blind, although otherwise in splendid health for his ninety-five years. Mrs. Taylor, ten years his junior, is in excellent health caring for her husband and doing all her own housework except the laundry.

Mrs. Taylor had a number of pioneer experiences in her girlhood days. She was born in Guernsey County, Ohio. February 191, 1842. In 1857 when the Bratton family got ready to move to Iowa they came in company with several other families, driving fifteen yoke of oxen and driving forty cows and calves. They forded all the small streams with the exception of one or two which they crossed on ferry boats. Later Martha went back to Ohio and got her high school education, returning to teach in Pottawattamie schools. Her father was a Methodist minister and was also county judge for a number of years in Pottawattamie County, where they lived.

Source: Article taken from the History of Silver City, published in 1954 by the Auxialiary Unit to the Gordon May Post No. 439, the American Legion Department of Iowa. Contributed to this memorial by Janet Milburn, 4th Great Granddaughter of the parents of James Taylor, for whom this memorial was made.

Sources

• Oral tradition
• Ancestry.com research
• Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 31 October 2018), memorial page for James W. Taylor (8 Sep 1805–22 Mar 1885), Find A Grave Memorial no. 103478081, citing Silver City Cemetery, Silver City, Mills County, Iowa, USA ; Maintained by Janet Milburn (contributor 47529757) .