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Taylor, Richard, father of President Taylor, was born in eastern Virginia. March 22, 1744; a descendant of James
Taylor, who came from England in 1682, and settled in Eastern Virginia. Richard's love of adventure carried him
to the unexplored country west of the Alleghenies, before he reached his majority, and he crossed Kentucky to the
Mississippi valley, thence to Natchez, a trading post. and from there northward through the trackless forest afoot
and alone back to his father's home in Virginia. He commanded a Virginia regiment in the revolution, and was a
field officer on Washington's personal force. He was married, August 20, 1799, to Sarah Strother, then nineteen,
and settled on a plantation near Orange Court House. They had three chilthen. Zachary being less than one year
old when they crossed the mountains into Kentucky and settled on the Beargrass Creek at the place known afterward
as Springfield, six miles from the present site of Louisville, a point selected by the elder brother, Hancock (a
surveyor of wild lands), who had preceded the family to the new territory. President Washington made Colonel Taylor
collector of the port of Louisville, then a port of entry, Louisiana being foreign territory, he was a delegate
to the state constitutional convention, a presidential district elector on the Madison ticket in 1813; elector
at large on the Monroe ticket in 1817; district elector on the Monroe ticket in 1821, and elector at large on the
Henry Clay ticket in 1825, Col. Dick Taylor died at "Springfield," Kentucky, 1826.
FROM:
Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography
Volume II
By: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, LL. D.
Lewis Historical Publishing Company
New York 1915
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