General Notes

Ancestral File Number:<AFN> LH6H-X5


Ref: Historical Southern Families, by Boddie.
A Colonel RichardTaylor, b. March 22, 1744, m. Sarah, daughter of William Strother of this family and died in KY in 1826. He was father of President Zachary Taylor, whose daughter Sarah, was the first wife of President Jefferson Davis, CSA.

(Note: Zachary Taylor was born Nov. 24, 1784; third son of Col. Richard Taylor, a Rev. officer. In 1785 he moved from Orange Co., VA to KY which at the time was part of Virginia. He lived near the present city of Louisville, KY. Ref: The World Book, Vol. 16, Encyclopedia).

Richard came from an old Virginia family with his father, Zachary, one of the first justices of Orange County in 1734 along with Robert Green, father of John, also of the First Virginia. Zachary died in 1768 and his epitaph in the Taylor Cemetery at Meadow Farm, Orange County, reads "son of James II, of Bloomsbury, Knight of the Golden Horseshoe. Grand parent of President Zachary Taylor, Great Uncle of President James Madison, Great Grand parent of Sara Knox Taylor, wife of President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy, husband of Elizabeth Lee." Richard was born on 3 April 1744 in Orange County. He was a graduate of William and Mary, served in the Virginia Assembly, and acquired the "Hare Forest" estate in Orange County. Richard went to Williamsburg with the company of Capt. John Green as its first lieutenant. Taking command of the company in October 1776, promotion to captain came with a date of rank of 5 March 1776. May and June 1777 found him in Virginia recruiting. The company payroll for September 1777 was signed by him and that month through the following November had him as acting regimental commander. On 4 February 1778, Taylor was promoted to major, while on furlough, and transferred to the Thirteenth Regiment which on 14 September 1778 became the Ninth. On 20 August 1779, he married Sarah Dabney Strother, sixteen years his junior, and also descended from old Virginia families. Appointment to lieutenant colonel of the Second Regiment was on 7 December 1779
and retirement on 12 February 1781. His balance of pay was collected on 24 April 1783. On
8 September 1783, land warrant 1734 awarded him 6,000 acres in the Military District of Ohio as a lieutenant colonel of the Virginia line for three year's service. He was also awarded number 5452 for eight years and two months service, in all 8,166 acres. Of their nine children, the third child and son, Zachary, would become President of the United States. Shortly after Zachary's birth at "Montebello", the home of a cousin, as "Hare Forest" had been sold, the mother and he and his two older brothers moved to Jefferson County (Kentucky) where Richard had already found the family a new home, "Springfield", near Louisville, which he built in 1785. Sarah died on 13 December 1822 and Richard on 19 January 1829. Almost to the end Richard sought his just rewards for on 12 June 1828 he was granted 450 acres for his lieutenant colonelcy which he had never received. A pension was also received on that date as he had opted for five years of full pay versus half pay for life. His accounting of his retirement was somewhat different from that provided by Gwathmey. He stated the Chesterfield Courthouse arrangement of officers arranged him as a supernumerary lieutenant colonel in the Ninth Virginia rather than a major in the Thirteenth which he was until then (M. Lee Minnis, First Virginia Regiment of Foot 1775-1783, 1998, pp. 386-387).

Col. Richard Taylor and his wife had several children. Their son, Zachary Taylor, Jr., was born in Orange Co, VA, in 1786, and was an officer in the U. Army, distinguishing himself during the struggle with Mexico, which service made him available to the Presidency, to which position he was elected, but the duties of his office were so taxing that he died before the expiration of his term. He married Margaret Smith and their son, Richard Taylor, was a Lieuten