My Genealogy Hound

DAVID H. TAYLOR is one of the prominent grape-growers of Chautauqua county. He was born in Murray, Orleans county, New York, September 4, 1822, and is a son of Jonathan H. and Polly (Hendrick) Taylor. He comes from an old and honored family, his ancestor, a Taylor, coming from England to America in 1630 and settling in Massachusetts. His grandfather, Theophilus Taylor, was born in Connecticut, January 28, 1760, and died November 24, 1831. He was a farmer by occupation, and one of his sons, Jonathan H. Taylor (father), was born at New Fairfield, Connecticut, 1792. He was stationed with the State militia, of which he was a member, at New London, during the blockade of that port by the British, and in (1814) received a commission of lieutenant from Gov. John Cotton Smith. He came to Westfield in 1831 and built the first foundry in this town. In religion he was a member and a deacon of the Presbyterian church, and died April 28, 1846, aged fifty-four years, at Westfield, where he had resided fourteen years. He married Polly Hendrick, a native of Fairfield, Conn., by whom he had two children. She was a member of the Presbyterian church and died in 1860, at sixty-six years of age.

David H. Taylor was reared principally at Westfield and received his education in the common schools and in the Westfield academy. In 1860 he began operations as a farmer, adopting the latest and most improved methods, and has continued to keep pace with the strides in improvement. He has fifty acres in the village of Westfield devoted to the cultivation of grapes.

On November 22, 1851, D. H. Taylor united in marriage with Harriet P., the only daughter of Judge Thomas B. Campbell, who had been a prominent citizen of Westfield and Chautauqua county since 1817, when he came to this town from Batavia, and built a saw and gristmill. Westfield was then known as Portland. Judge Campbell was born in 1788 in Alexandria, Grafton county, N. H., a town now somewhat famous for its extensive mica mines. He continued the milling and flouring business for forty-seven years. He owned hundreds of acres of farm lands and in 1860 sold sixty acres in the southern part of the village for fair ground purposes. In 1819 he was appointed clerk of this county, associate judge in 1826, and first judge in 1845, which office he held until the election of judges under the constitution adopted in 1846. He was supervisor eight years, 1819-‘27, a member of Assembly from 1822 to 1836, and a member of the board of commissioners for building the present county court-house. He had two sons and three daughters, all of whom are dead but Mrs. Taylor. Judge Campbell died at the house of Mr. Taylor, on President Cleveland’s inauguration day, aged ninety-seven years, in full possession of all his faculties. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor have been the parents of four children, three of whom are living, one son and two daughters — Mary L., wife of Dr. Charles G. Stockton, one of the most prominent physicians in Buffalo; Anna, wife of Henry W. Hunter, of Canton, Ohio, and Thomas B. C. married to Charlotte Flower, of St. Lawrence county, this State.

In politics Mr. Taylor is an uncompromising democrat, a good substantial citizen, honorable and enterprising, broad and liberal-minded and a very pleasant and agreeable gentleman. A community which possesses such citizens generally feels a just pride in them, and the more they have of such men the greater is their material advantage and advancement. Mr. Taylor occupies a high place in the respect and esteem of the people among whom he has dwelt so long.