Theiss, Nancy. Oldham County Live at the River's Edge, Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2010.
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| Richard Taylor |
p. 10 Commodore Richard Taylor was certainly one of the most distinguished pioneers and early citizens of Oldham County. Born in Orange County, Virginia, the commodore married twice and had six sons and five daughters. Taylor was comissioned as a captain in the navy during the Revolutionary War in 1775. He was wounded twice, in the knee and thigh, and retired from active duty in 1781. His vessel, the Tartar, was engaged in battle with an English schooner when he received his first wound (the thing). In November 1781, he was commondore of the Patriot in another battle with an English cruiser just outside Chesapeake Bay. The following description of the battle scene was written by Mr. ANderson, who worked with Commodore Taylor and collected historical records, according to Lucien Rule's Pioneering in Masonry:
The sea was calm and the breeze insufficient to manipulate his vessel. Captain Taylor, therefore, determined to attack the Englishmen in open boas and board and capture her by a hand to hand fight. As his boats approached the enemy, they were the target for volley after volley from the guns of the British, but without damage to any of them. The American seamen were enthusiastic and felt that victory was within their grasp, when one of Captain Taylor's sailors, making mock of the British fire, exclaimed, "Why don't you elevate your mettle?" This hint to elevate the breeches of their guns was acted on and a volley of grape shot fired into Captain Taylor's boat, defeated his bold plan of capture, and wounded him for life. The foolish young seaman never thought for a moment of such a result. He probably lost his own life with his comrades. As for the Captain a grape shot pierced his knee, disabling him for life and compelling him to retire from active service.
The Patrior and the Tartar continued to defend the Virginia coast from the British until the end of the war under Captain Barron, who died in 1787. Although Taylor was barely able to hobble around on crutches, the governor of Virginia and the Naval Board retained him as the virtual head of coastal defense with the rank of commodore until the close of hostilities.
In 1794, Taylor settled in Oldham County on a tract of 5,333 acres given to him for his service in the Revolutionary War. He brought his family, one hundred slaves and other personal property and livestock, settling close to Goshen off Buckeye and Shiloh Lanes. His property extended to the Ohio [p.11] River, but he built a two-story log home that sat back about a mile from the river, naming it Woodlawn.
Taylor was friends with General Marquis de LaFayette, and when LaFayette made his visit to America as a guest of the nation in 1824, he visited the commodore and his family. Taylor's granddaughter, who lived at Woodlawn until she was fourteen yeras old at the time of Taylor's death, recalled LaFayette sitting her on his lap and giving her a kiss, which caused her to be the envy of all her playmates. A few years before LaFayette's visit to Woodlawn, the little girl's mother, Matilda Taylor, had a beautiful family wedding at Woodlawn in May 1790 that was known as the event of the year. Matilda married her childhood sweetheart, Isaac Robertson. They met in Virginia before the Taylor family moved to Oldham County. Isaac became an attorney and studied law under Bushrod Washington in Richmond, Virginia.
By 1810, the Robertson family had settled in Frankfort, where Isaac practiced law before the court of appeals. The Robertsons had several children during this time and boarded at the a local hotel in Frankfort. One tragic afternoon, Robertson had an altercation with portrait painter Samuel Dearborn about a room in the hoel. Dearborn slipped up behind Robertson and fatally stabbed him in the back while Robertson was playing on the hotel lawn with his children. Matilda took her children to Woodlawn and cared for her father and kept house for him after her mother's death.
In 1817, Congress approved and passed a measure for the relief of Commodore Taylor with an annual pension for as long as he lived. His great-grandson and namesake, Colonel Richard Taylor Jacob, was born at Woodlawn on March 14, 1825. Colonel Jacob had a beautiful monument of red granite erected over the graves of the commodore and his wife. The base of the granite slab contains the stones from the chimneys of Woodlawn.
1. Richard Taylor, b. 1/6/1749, Orange Co., VA, d. 8/30/1825, Westport, Oldham Co., KY md. 1771
Catherine Davis b. 1750 King George Co., VA, d. 1810 Oldham Co., KY
2. (4e) Col. George Taylor, b. 2/11/1711 King & Queen Co., VA, d. 11/4/1792 [Orange Co, VA?]
3. Rachel Gibson b. 5/4/1717, Richmond Co., VA, d. 2/19/1761 Orange Co., VA
4. (8b) Col. James Taylor II, b. 3/14/1674 New Kent Co., VA, d. 1/23/1729 Caroline Co., VA
5. Martha Thompson b. 1679 Carlisle, England, d. 11/19/1762 Orange Co., VA
6. Jonathan Gibson 1668-1729
7. Elizabeth Thornton 1675-1733
8. James Taylor, the elder, b. 2/12/1634 England, d. 4/30/1698 King & Queen Co., VA
9. Frances Walker b. 1640 England, d. 9/23/1680 Caroline Co., VA
4a. Frances Taylor 1700-1761 md.Ambrose Madison
4b. Martha Taylor 1702-1782 md. Thomas Chew
4c. James Taylor III 1703-1784 md. Alice Thornton
4d. Zachary Taylor Sr. 1707-1768 md. Elizabeth Allerton Lee
4f. Erasmus Taylor 1715-1794 md. Jane Conway Moore
8a. Jane Taylor 1668-1669
8c. Sarah Taylor 1676-1730 md. (--?--) Powell
Connection to Jane Taylor?
Reed, John. Tragic Sword: A Biography of Brigadier General Francis Nash of North Carolina, 1742-1777, Bulletin of the Historical Society of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 1972
p. 235 By 1771 Governor Tryon, though cognizant that corruption in government threatened a major eruption among the back-[p.236] country citizenrey, first attempted to ward off the eruption by institutiing minor reforms, then, this policy failing to sastisfy the dissidents, endeavored to suppress the discontent through stern countermeasures. These dissidents called themselves Regulators, a term derived from popular desire for a revision or regulation of the causes of their grievances and an end to public corruption. Tryon's sudden arrest of Regulator leaders Hermon Husband, William Butler and two others only aroused more disturbances. The Orange County Regulators rapidly assembled and marched on Hillsboro to force liberation of the captives. Tryon's show of militia force, however, induced the Regulators to disperse. Although the trial of the Regulator leaders was thereby permitted to proceed, Husband was acquitted and his accomplices only received slight fines and token imprisonments. They were then pardoned, and Tryon gained two years of tenuous peace.
At the end of this time the back-country people, increasingly exasperated by the Governor's continued callousness to their oppressed plight, again gathered, without the sanction of their leaders, in an uncontrollable mob and blocked all judicial procedures at Hillsboro. Armed revolt threatened. . . .
By the spring of 1771 the Regulators, failing to force any redress of their grievances, and receiving erroneous information that their leader, Hermon Husband, had again been arrested and imprisoned by the Crown authorities, determined to march on New Bern and confront the Governor personally. Orange County drew on all the western counties for support. Cross Creek, in the vicinity of the present Fayetteville, was appointed as the assembly place. Approximately 1,000 of the dissidents soon converged at that point and the march began. Although its progress was arrested and the armed mob dispersed of its own volition on discovering that the report concerning Husband's arrest was false, Governor Tryon, in turn exasperate dby events, determined to crush the incipient revolt.
p. 237 Initially assembling a force of about 300 well-equipped militia infantry and artillery, Tryon marched wes from New Bern on April 23. as he proceeded, his force was rapidly augmented to 1,068 infantry and 30 light horse. All the increments to Tryon's force were likewise militia. . . . The Regulators, apprised of Tryon's approach, hastily assembled a rather disorganized force of some 2,000 men, only about half of whom were armed with shooting weapons, to oppose the "invasion" by Tryon's forces. The remainder of the Regulator "army" was haphazardly armed with more primitive weapons such as farm implements and poles, or with none at all.
The Tryonists presently encamped at Hillsboro, where negotiations were opened with the Regulators in a last hope of a peaceful settlement of differences. The negotiations failing, the Tryonists marched a half-dozen miles west from Hillsboro, until they met their enemies near the Alamance River on May 16. Despite the disparity in equipment, most of the Regulators, on receiving the Tryonists' attack, resisted stubbornly, though some of their companions fled at the first fire. Almance was not a battle in the strict military sense, with well-trained forces led by competent and experienced officers facing each other, and with military tactics employed. It was simply a duel between partially trained forces on the Tryonists' side and untrained forces on the other, with the former, better-equipped forces winnign. Even then at one point in the fight the Regulators drove the Tryonists fromt he latter's cannon.
At the end of two hours' fighting the Regulators broke and fled after sustaining a loss of 9 killed (some accounts say 20) and numerous wounded, plus a number of unwounded captives who fell into Tryon's hands, one of whom was immediately hanged. The Tryonists lost 9 killed and 61 wounded. . . .
p.238 Although Governor Tryon would offer pardons to the participants in the now extinguished rebellion, he nevertheless set an example of his combined wrath and clemncy by trying twelve of his prisoners for treason. Upon their being declared guilty as charged, six prisoners were hanged and the balance pardoned.
With the Regulator cause crushed, multitudes of the defeated forces and their families and supporters fled westward across the mountains into western North Carolina and even as far as the present eastern Tennessee. Most of these men would favor the American cause during the Revolution, and many of them would form the force that would return east, to northern South Carolina, in 1780 to defeat Major Patrick Ferguson's Loyalists at King's Mountain, thereby materially disrupting Lord Cornwallis's southern campaign of that year.
Some 6,400 ex-Regulators, including their families and sympathizers, however, acceded to a British oath of allegiance imposed on them by Tryon, and remained in central North Carolina. Nevertheless many of these men and their families eventually drifted westward, thereby considerably weakening any pro-British sentiments they might have retained. A comparatively few ex-Regulators therefore remained permanently in central North Carolina, a portion of whom continued loyal to the King throughout the Revolution. This small minority loyalty to the Crown, whence Governor Tryon's gubernatorial appoitnment had been derived, was perhaps a considerable change of heart from Regulator days. This alteration stemmed principally from a continuing hatred fo the eastern lowlanders who had supported Tryon in 1771, and who, also changing heart, became American Patriots in 1775.
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