William Whitaker Taylor (1853 - 1884)

Born 11 Sep 1853 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, USA

Ancestors

Died 1 Aug 1884 at age 30 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, USA

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Biography

William Whitaker Taylor^[1] (September 11, 1853 – August 1, 1884) was a member of the Utah Territorial Legislature, member of the Presidency of the Seventy in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and a son of LDS Church president John Taylor. He was a half brother to John W. Taylor, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who was dropped from the body and excommunicated for refusing to give up plural marriage, and a brother-in-law to George Q. Cannon.

William served a mission in England with his half brother John, but before leaving married the youngest daughter of Abraham Hoagland and Agnes Taylor, 20-year-old Sarah Taylor Hoagland,^[2] with whom he eventually had six children.

Two years after returning from his mission, William was named one of the First Seven Presidents of the Seventy at the age of 26.^[3] Soon thereafter he was also appointed to the Council of Fifty.^[4]

Despite the near-universal view that John Taylor refused compromise on plural marriage, over a third of general authorities appointed under Taylor were monogamists, including William and his half brother.^[5] It wasn't until just before his death that William took on a plural wife, Selma van Cott, daughter of fellow Seventies president John Van Cott.

In addition to his rise within the church, William was elected to the Utah Territorial Legislature in the 1883 general election. Within months, he was also elected assessor and collector of taxes for Salt Lake City in February 1884. However, on a Saturday evening that summer, he was attacked with "bilious colic" and died from the effects within a week.^[6] He left six children, eight years and under,^[7] from his first wife and none from his second.

Given his meteoric rise in church and public office, one historian commented that Taylor would be much better known if his life hadn't ended at such an early age. His father, who was president of the LDS Church at the time, said in his obituary "I cannot think of anything which I wish he had done differently."^[8]

At Taylor's funeral in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, Wilford Woodruff, Robert T. Burton, Joseph F. Smith, George Q. Cannon, and John Taylor each spoke.^[9]

Sources

1. ↑ Wikipedia entry
2. ↑ Davis, Kent. Abstracts of Deaths and Marriages Notices in the Deseret News Weekly of Salt Lake City, Utah (1852-1888). Married April 5, 1875.
3. ↑ Quinn, D. Michael. "The Council of Fifty and its members, 1844-1945." 1980. Brigham Young University Studies 20 (winter): 163-97.
4. ↑ Stout, Hosea. On the Mormon Frontier: The Diary of Hosea Stout, 1844-1861. Utah State Historical Society, University of Utah Press, 1964, p. 716.
5. ↑ Quinn, D. Michael. "LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890 - 1904." Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Spring 1985.
6. ↑ Wells, Junius F. "Biography and Death Note of William W. Taylor." Contributor 5 (1884): 434.
7. ↑ "Sarah Taylor Hoagland" at www.algerclan.org. Link
8. ↑ “President William Whitaker Taylor,” Deseret Evening News, 1 Aug, 1884, p. 2.
9. ↑ Smith, John Henry. The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star Volume XLVL, p. 538.