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Taylor-Botkin-Smith Family

Ireland to Virginia to Kentucky to Texas

Tarleton Jones Taylor (1828-1867) & Catharine Botkin/Bodkin (1831-1922)

Daughter of William Botkin, Sr. (ca 1770-1848), & wife Catharine Smith Zumwalt (1795-1863)

Tarleton Jones Taylor (1 May 1828 Grant Co., KY - 30 July 1867) ~ Minister of the Gospel. This water-damaged photo was clumsily "restored" by someone, but we can't tell much about him except he had dark "hat hair."	Catharine Botkin (1 Jun 1831, Harrison Co., KY - 1922 in MO), daughter of William Botkin & wife Catharine Smith

Tarleton Jones Taylor and Catharine Botkin (spelled Tarlton J. Taylor and Catharine Bodkin on their Bible record, but her name on back of her photograph was "Catharine Botkin") married 26 Dec 1849 in Harrison Co., TX. Tarleton was no doubt named for his uncle Tarlton Taylor, born 1783 in Rowan Co., NC, likely named for the ruthless British officer in the Revolution, "Tarleton Bannister" (featured in the Mel Gibson movie The Patriot). There is evidence the Taylors, Bartlesons, and Canatscer/Knortzer allied families were Tories (Loyalists).

Tarleton Jones Taylor's parents were Benjamin F. Taylor and Mary Charlotte Mings, married in Wayne Co., KY, in Jan 1819. Their first child was born in Madison Co. Oct 1819, followed by two others there, and Tarleton J. was born (according to an old paper in Erie Taylor Wilks's Bible) in Grant Co. 1 May 1828. Two more children were born in Madison Co.

Benjamin lived near his father in the 1830 Madison Co. census. By 1840 Benjamin lived in Owen Co. and was enumerated in its census. Some of his children moved to Grant Co., KY, which borders Harrison Co.

Erie Taylor wrote, "Tarleton J. Taylor was born in the year 1828 May First. When he was fifteen years old," she said he was moving with his family to North Carolina to Kentucky, but that was before his time ~ it his grandfather Thomas "Little Tom" Taylor (1756-1844), so it was either when Tarleton and his parents moved from Madison Co. to Owen Co., or it was his grandfather "Little Tom" who walked and talked with the teacher/preacher when moving from North Carolina. It is factual that "Little Tom" was a Christian and very involved with Little Bethel Church in Madison Co.

"In the group there was a man who was a school teacher and preacher. He walked with Tarleton J. Taylor day after day and seeing that he was interested in books and wanted to learn, he invited him to live with him and he would instruct him. His parents gave their consent and he lived with the man three years, helping with the farm work and studying. He mastered English, Latin, and the Bible, too. . ."

"When Tarleton J. Taylor was 19 years old he preached his first sermon and it was a great surprise to all of his family. He made a great preacher and when he was 22 years of age he began teaching school. When he was 20 years old, he went to Harrison Co., KY, and preached and met Miss Catharine Bodkins. They were married when he was 21 years old, she was 19 at the time." Harrison Co. is in the beautiful Kentucky Blue Grass region N. of Lexington, horse country.

Tarleton J. Taylor's certificate of ordination in the Church of Christ at Antioch, Owen Co., KY, 1 May 1848

Catharine was the daughter of William Botkin, Sr. (1770-1848), and Catharine Smith Zumwalt (1795-1863), both of whom had been married and had children previously and lost their partners in death. Catharine's father William had two sons and three daughters by his 1st wife; Catharine's mother had three daughters by her Zumwalt husband. Catharine had one full younger sister, Amanda Ellen Botkin or Bodkin.

When Tarleton J. Taylor and Catharine Bodkin married, her mother (wrote Erie Taylor), "was very old, so she persuaded him to live with her and manage the farm. He did, and lived there several years. He took several preaching trips up into Indiana, Ohio, and other states.

They were enumerated on the census of Harrison Co. taken 9 Sep 1850, in hh 700-706 as Catharine Bodkins 54 $3320 KY, Catharine Taylor 18 KY, Thompson J. Taylor 22 KY, Amanda E. Taylor 12 KY; p. 156. On the separate 1850 slave census, Catharine Bodkins owned a black man and woman, ages 46 and 40, with three boys age 9, 5, and 8/12, and a girl 3.

Her great- granddaughter Erie Catharine Taylor Wilks wrote about happy times when the maple trees were tapped for sap, making sugar, and about the flax they raised, harvested, and turned into fine woven linen.

Tarleton Jones Taylor performed the marriage ceremony of his wife's sister Amanda Ellen Botkin/Bodkin in Harrison Co., KY, marriage bond #4761, Martin Smith bondsman. On the reverse side of the bond is written, "I do certify that I did execute the within on 19th Dec 1854 in the home of Mrs. Catherine Bodkin, Harrison Co., KY, in presence of Spear Smith and John Hamilton. Witness my hand, Tarleton J. Taylor, Minister of Christian Church." Martin Smith was Catherine Smith Bodkin's brother; John Hamilton was her son-in-law.

Tarleton J. Taylor and wife Catharine moved abt 1855 from Harrison Co., KY, to Grayson Co., TX, down the Mississippi River by steamboat, til they reached New Orleans, then up the Red River to Shreveport, bringing Kentucky saddle horses. There they unloaded and continued by wagon to Sherman, Grayson Co., TX, settling on a stock farm by a little community called Kentucky Town, near the Trinity River. He farmed and raised Kentucky saddle horses and Southdown sheep. He preached on Saturdays and Sundays, and in winter he taught school. Tarleton and Catharine had seven children. One died in infancy and six lived to be grown.

The Goen and Stephens families moved there from Jackson Co., IN, about the same time, and that is where Ferd Taylor met his wife-to-be, Elizabeth Goen.

Taylor was one of the pioneer preachers and school teachers of Texas. He also owned a sheep and cattle ranch and made Kentucky saddle horses a specialty, bet 1856-1867.

In the year 1856, he came to Texas . . .

When or before he moved his family to Texas, Grandma Bodkin went to visit her three daughters in Missouri (Mahulda Zumwalt, Zerelda Zumwalt, and Amanda Bodkin) who married Calvert brothers. I don't know what became of her third daughter, Mary Ann Zumwalt, and husband John Hamilton.

	Catharine Botkin Taylor died 17 Nov 1920 in Stephens Co., OK, or in 1922 ~ at age 91, a year after she fell and broke her hip. She married Tarleton Jones Taylor (born 1 May 1828 in Grant Co., KY) on 25 Dec 1849 in Harrison Co., KY (Harrison Co. Marriages, Index 1, No. 4220.

The Tarleton J. Taylor family were enumerated in the 1860 census in Sherman, Grayson Co., TX, in the household of Thos. Newton 45, Eliza Newton 40, Cas B. Newton 20, Ben C. Newton 19, Jasper M. Newton 17, Jane Newton 17, Hadas S. Newton 9, Thos. J. Newton 6, Agatina Newton 2, Sarah A. Newton 3/12; Jacob Zeagler 21; Tarlton J. Taylor 35 KY, Catharine Taylor 30 KY, Ferdinando Taylor 7 KY, Andrew J. Taylor 7 KY, Romulus L. Taylor 6 KY, Elizabeth E. Taylor 1 TX, Mary J. Ausburn 22 KY [Tarleton's sister].

The names of Tarleton J. and Catharine Taylor's sons owe some credit to his love of Latin and hers of history. They had the following children:

1. Ferdinando San Francisco Taylor b: 14 MAR 1851 in Harrison Co., KY
2. Andrew Jackson Taylor b: 12 MAR 1853 in Harrison Co., KY
3. Remus Romulus Lycurgus Taylor b: 07 JUN 1855 in Harrison Co., KY
4. Benjamin Franklin Taylor b: 12 DEC 1857 in Grayson Co., TX
5. Elizabeth Ellen Jane Taylor b: 18 MAR 1859 in Grayson Co., TX
6. Tarleton Gano Taylor b: 17 NOV 1861 in TX
7. William Sterling Lee Taylor b: 15 AUG 1864 in Grayson Co., TX
8. Mary Victory Taylor b: 22 JUL 1867 in TX

R. L. (Remus Romulus Lycurgus, "Uncle Curg") Taylor (1855-1951) & a grandchild	Elizabeth Ellen Jane Taylor Prewitt (1859-1918)

In the year 1867 Tarleton Jones Taylor "got word to go to Missouri to get his wife's part of inheritance from her mother Catharine Smith Zumwalt Bodkin. He started in a wagon drawn by two fine mules. He left the home in Grayson Co. and trveled days and preached some along the way, leaving appointments to fill as he came back. He stayed longer than he intended while they were settling the estate," (his wife could not go as she was advanced in pregnandy).

And he hurried home from Missouri toward Texas, but stopped at Baxter Springs, Cherokee Co., KS, to preach on Friday night. The Saturday, he traveled all day while returning to TX from MO where he collected his wife's inheritance, preaching along the way.

The Saturday, he traveled all day, but about 2 p.m., he overtook a man walking that said he was going to Texas and was taken sick. So Tarleton asked him to get in and ride. He fixed him a good place to lay down in his wagon. Soon afterwards three men met him riding horseback. They spoke and rode on, then a half hour before sundown the same three men came along again and he asked them about a good camping place. They knew exactly where it was and told him to go half a mile, then he would find a grassy spot for grazing and good spring for water and plenty of good wood. He thanked them and they rode on. He went to the campsite. Sure enough, there was a good place. He took his team out of the harness and watered them, then hobbled them to graze, intending to tie them up at bed time. Then brought water and built a fire and was cooking supper. It was getting dark by then. Here came those three men again. They rode up and ordered him to give up his money. He stepped to the wagon for his gun, when the man he had hauled all evening grabbed it and would not let him have it. He told them he did not have but very little money, just enough to bear his expenses back home, but they would not believe him for he had gone to collect his inheritance and they knew he had it. He gave them all he had, which was $40.00, but they were not satisfied and put a rope around his neck and put him up behind one of the men and took him off. He asked to be permitted to pray, but they refused, and took him to where Cow River, and about Spring Creek come together. Here they killed him, cut his head off and tied rocks to it and his body and sank them where the River and the Creek come together. Then they searched the wagon for money, but did not find any. So they divided the things, and the mules between the four of them, burned the wagon and left. He had a lot of fine linen, bed clothes and pillows and a goose feather bed that the other children were sending Catharine. They were her mother's things. The next morning was Sunday and the people were going to have all day preaching at a nearby school house, and dinner on the grounds. A bunch of young men went before sunup to seine for fish to cook for dinner, and the first drag they made with the seine, they dragged up Tarleton's head and recognized him. They went and reported to the neighborhood. They found his body and took him to Baxter Springs and buried him. The Sheriff and a posse went in search of the murderers and found one of them and his wife going down the river with the feather bed and pillows in a canoe. They got them, then chased another one of them on one of the mules and caught him. I don't remember where they found the other, but the fourth man was shot and killed afterwards by another outlaw. That was up there in what they call the Cookson Hills right where Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, and Missouri come together. . . Well, the officers stood in with the outlaws and was afraid to punish them. They would try and turn them aloose. So the good people decided they would not let those men go free. After the trial in which they were found not builty, the good men were outside of the court house door and as they came out, they got them and took off to the woods and hung them. They let the one that turned state's evidence go free. He was the one that rode in the wagon. He really had nothing to do with the killing. Tarleton was killed the 30th day of July 1867. Aunt Mary, his baby girl, was born July 22, eight days before he was killed. He was hurrying home to get home before time for her arrival, but he was a long way from home. He was supposed to get back three weeks before that time. The man that turned state's evidence said he called his wife's name three times as they bound him. They did not hang him, but bound him to a tree and shot him, then cut his head off. His wife, that same hour of the night, heard him and woke up when he called her name. She was awakened from a sound asleep, thinking she heard her husband call her. Believing he was returning home, she went to the door but no one was there. She lay back down, then thought she heard him call and went to look again. His wife and children waited in vain for his return. After three weeks, Brother Broils of Baxter Springs, Kansas, wrote a letter telling them about the murder. It was very sad. Kansas County Map, shows Cherokee Co. http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/cherokee/ Baxter Springs, KS, near lower right, in Spring Valley Twp., map from Cherokee Co., KS, website

The Erie Catharine Taylor - William Wesley Wilks Family, by Doris Nan Ross Brock: Cleveland, OH, 1971, pp. 51-54.

From a Grayson Co. newspaper at Sherman, TX, headed "Pleasant View, Cherokee Co., Kansas, August 1, 1867:

Post master at Sherman, Grayson Co., TX: "Dear Sir: "There was a man murdered in this county on the night of July 30, 1867, by the name of Tarleton J. Taylor, and from the best information he resided in Grayson County, Texas and if he has any friends or relatives living in your part of the county, you will please communicate this fact to them at your earliest convenience, we have one of the supposed murders now in jail, (his name is James Mathews). "For further information write to W. G. Seright, sheriff of Cherokee County, Kansas." "The above was handed to us by the P.M. and we publish it for the benefit of the friends of the deceased."

Next=> Botkin/Bodkins Family

Next: Descendants of F. S. Taylor, Pedigree-ancestry of F. S. Taylor

More pix of Jewel & C. J. Taylor

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