My Genealogy Hound

E. J. Taylor, a prominent and enterprising citizen of Bird Township, Jackson County, was born in North Carolina in 1814, the fifth child of Charles and Mary (Turner) Taylor, of North Carolina, the father an extensive planter of North Carolina, who died in Mississippi in 1855, his excellent wife dying in 1836. The subject of this sketch was reared on the farm, and educated in the subscription schools of Alabama, and at the age of twenty-two enlisted for three months’ service under Gen. Scott, against the Creek and Seminole Indians, after which time he clerked in Huntsville, Ala., for nine years, and in 1845 went to Memphis, and conducted a general store. After his marriage, in 1850, he engaged in farming, in De Soto County, Miss., till after the close of the war. He improved a large plantation, and in 1866 moved to Memphis, and opened a grocery and commission business, which he conducted until 1873, when he sold the business, and came to Bird Township, locating at Elgin. He engaged in farming, and now owns a good farm of 2,000 acres, in Jackson and Independence Counties, with 600 under cultivation, raising principally cotton. In connection with his son, James O., he has a cotton-gin and grist mill, and also a lumber-mill, for their own use. They also have a supply store. His son is postmaster at Elgin. Our subject is a Democrat, and a member of Memphis Lodge, A. F. & A. M., and he and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1850 he married Mary J. Oliver, a native of Georgia, and daughter of James and Lucy (Clark) Oliver, of Virginia and Georgia; the father died in 1848, and the mother in 1850. They have two children: James O. married Julia Ethel Doswell, and Lucy Ann. Mr. Taylor is actively interested in everything pertaining to the good of the county.