Our Pioneer Heritage                              Volume 8

People Who Came On the First Trains From the Southern States, July 1869 Emigrant's Guide
Knowledge of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was brought to the Taylor family
by missionaries, and in 1868 most of the family embraced that religion, then prepared to leave
for Utah. The trip began on a July day in 1869, when they left at one o'clock for Mt. Airy, five
miles away. At the camp grounds that evening their company was serenaded by the Negroes. The
old-time melodies and plantation songs were sung to the accompaniment of guitars and
mandolins, as only the colored folk can sing them. They journeyed by team to Withville,
Virginia, and continued by train to Norfolk, Virginia, and from there to New York City, where
they entrained for Omaha, Nebraska. Here they boarded an immigrant train which took them to
Utah. They awaited the twenty-nine wagons and teams sent from Payson, Utah. Three days were
required to make the journey to Payson. Camping each night, the first was spent at Bountiful,
where Mary Ann (Danley) Taylor, Sarah Ann, and Jedediah slept on the porch of the Bountiful
Church. Arriving at Payson on July 31, 1869, the company stayed at Union Hall until homes
were found. After a few years of living in Payson, the family moved to a five-acre farm in what
was then called "the poorman's field."

In February, 1905, Mary Ann Danley Taylor fell and broke her hip. A nurse was hired to care for
her, but in the evenings her two sons, David Rufus and Zachariah Shadric, with their wives,
Sarah and Nellie took turns in helping to care for their mother, who by this time was a widow.
She died June 19, 1905.

Jedediah Taylor, one of the children who came to Utah with the Boyle Company died in Salt
Lake City, March 11, 1943. He was born May 11, 1861, in Holly Springs, Surry County, North
Carolina, a son of Thomas and Mary Ann Danley Taylor. With his parents, twobrothers and two
sisters, he came to Utah in 1869 on one of the first trains. The family moved to Payson where
Jedediah attended school, later graduating from Brigham Young University at Provo. He married
Mary Emily Butler on May 11, 1882, in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, and later
taught school in Kaysville. His wife passed away in 1932.  Taylor, David R., Bishop of the
Salem Ward, Palmyra Stake, Utah Co., Utah, from 1888 to 1910, was born Aug. 29, 1850,
in Holly Springs, Surry Co., North Carolina, the son of Thomas Taylor and Mary A. Danley. He
was baptized in May, 1869, in North Carolina, filled a mission to the Southern States in
1886-1888, and was ordained a Bishop Aug. 21, 1888, by Francis M. Lyman. He died Aug. 1,
1935.