U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Taylor, Gustavus Friend (1834-1915) ------------------------------------------------------------------- History of Braxton County and Central West Virginia by John Davison Sutton Sutton, West Virginia, January, 1919 Page 443 Captain Gustavus Friend Taylor was born June 27, 1834, and was the son of Archibald and Elizabeth Friend Taylor. His father was a grandson of Captain John Skidmore, and his mother, a daughter of Thomas who was a son of Jacob Friend. Late in the 60's, he married Nannie Dunn Levy of Wheeling, and to this union were born five children: Elizabeth, Edgar D., Archibald A., Ida and N. Mendal. Captain Taylor lived amid the storm center of our national history; saw the gathering clouds and heard the mutterings of an angry nation. Descending from a distinguished Revolutionary ancestry, he played a noble part in the country's political convulsions that shook the nation to its center, and its deep trouble gave birth to a new state, and freedom to a race. He was educated in the best schools of the county, also went to the Ohio Wesleyan College. At the age of twenty-six, he was elected to the Constitutional Convention which sat in Wheeling in 1861 and 1862, and was recalled in 1863 to perfect the draft of the Constitution before its adoption. He was next to the youngest member of that memorable body, and so far as we know, he was its last survivor. He was also associated in the formation of this Constitution with such men as John J. Brown of Preston, Lewis Ruffner of Kanawha, Peter G. Vanwinkle of Ohio, Waitman T. Wiley of Monongalia, and many other men of splendid attainments. After the adoption of the Constitution, he was made Captain of the Braxton company of state troops, and served in this capacity until the close of the Civil war. He was the first Recorder of Braxton county after the Civil war, and in 1870 was elected Prosecuting Attorney of the county. In the 70's, he owned and edited the Mountaineer, Braxton county's first newspaper. He had no fondness for the law, but was a literary man of learning and research, his facile pen having no superior in central West Virginia. It is to be regretted that his history of the Aboriginals of America, a work on which he bestowed much labor and research, was unfinished by reason of age and infirmity. He died Oct. 5, 1915, and is buried at the Taylor cemetery, three miles below Sutton. ------------------------------------------------------------------- From Register of Deaths, Lewis County, WV (Page 197) FULL-NAME: Gustavus Taylor DEATH-DATE: November 4, 1915 at 81-years of age DEATH-PLACE: Hospital MARITAL-STATUS: Married CAUSE-OF-DEATH: Pneumonia INFORMANT: C. Denham, Physician ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access other biographies for Braxton County, WV by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/wv/braxton/bios.html -------------------------------------------------------------------