Henry Taylor (December 20, 1737 June 14, 1781 ) was a planter, patriot and politician from Southampton County who represented the county in the House of Burgesses, Virginia Revolutionary conventions and Virginia House of Delegates.Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography vol. 1 p. 337, available at hathitrust.org
Early and family life
The son of Henry Taylor(d. 1743) of Charles City County and his wife, the former Patience Kinchen, had several brothers and sisters. Like his elder half brothers Ethelred Taylor (1699-1775) and William Taylor(d. 1772), Henry Taylor represented Southampton County in the Virginia House of Burgesses, and would be succeeded by his brother John Taylor representing Southampton County in the Virginia House of Delegates (again after a gap, his own son John having already died). His brother Kinchen Taylor (d.1771) was a merchant as well as planter. Another brother was James Taylor.
In 1758, this man married the former Temperance Peterson or Batte (1738-1798) in Brunswick County. They had at least three sons (Ethelred, John and Henry) as well as daughters Charlotte, Mary Taylor Blake and Martha.Tyler p. 337
Career
Taylor was a planter, who like his father and brothers farmed using enslaved labor (although John, who had inherited a parcel known as Indian Town would emancipate some slaves, but received others upon his remarriage). Henry Taylor also administered the estate of his merchant brother Kinchen Taylor after 1772, and in 1776 bought from his brothers Ethelred, John and James a parcel of land that had belonged to their father. Although this man had died six years before the Virginia Tax Census of 1787, his widow Temperance Taylor owned ten enslaved adult Blacks, eight between 16 and 20 years old, 4 horses and 11 cattle, as well as a 2 wheeled carriage.Nettie Schreiner-Yantis and Florene Speakman Love, 1787 The Census of Virginia (Genealogical Publishing Co., Springfield VA 1987) vol. 2, p. 1134 Southampton County voters first elected Taylor as their representative to the House of Burgesses in 1769, and re-elected him until Virginia's last royal governor, Lord Dunmore, suspended that body.Cynthia Miller Leonard, The Virginia General Assembly 1619-1978 (Richmond, Virginia State Library 1978) pp. 98, 100, 104, 106 Meanwhile, Taylor also served on the local Committee of Safety, and his brother or son John led one of the county's seven militia companies, and his son Captain Henry Taylor successfully recruited a company of "minute men" before war was declared, and garrisoned a station at Suffolk after Lord Dunmore's forces destroyed Norfolk in January 1776.Thomas C. Parramore, Southampton County, Virginia, (University of Virginia Press for the Southampton County Historical Society, 1978) p.37 Southampton voters also elected Taylor and Edwin Gray as their representatives to all five Virginia Revolutionary Conventions, although here is no record proving that Taylor attended the Fourth Revolutionary Convention.Leonard pp, 110, 113, 115 n.2, 118, 120 Taylor also won election to the first session of the Virginia House of Delegates, and won re-election once.Leonard, pp. 123, 127
Death and legacy
Taylor died on June 14, 1781, and his widow was appointed administrator of his estate.
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