A Tale of Two Taylors

Today we’re going to look at another period in the history of Willow Greens Farm. You might remember how founder Timothy Taylor (1761-1838) inherited the land and built the stone farmhouse, and how the farm was passed to subsequent generations before being sold outside the family. Did you notice how these accounts sidestepped an important era in American history?

Yes, it’s time to talk about enslaved people. 

Timothy Taylor’s son Timothy (1794-1869) inherited most of Willow Greens Farm and was the executor of his father’s estate. But unlike most members of the Taylor family, he was not buried at Goose Creek Burying Ground, a Quaker cemetery. Instead, he is buried at Ketoctin Baptist Church Cemetery, along with his wife, four of his six daughters, and his wife’s parents. This piqued my curiosity. In the patriarchal society of the time, when a woman married she became part of her husband’s family. The only reason for Timothy not to be buried at Goose Creek would be his dismissal from the Quaker community. Ancestry.com led me to damning evidence of this.

1850 Loudoun County Slave Schedule Source: Ancestry.com

In 1850, Timothy Taylor the younger enslaved one 22-year-old male, two 18-year-old females, and two children ages 4 and 1. Incidentally, ten years later the three older people were not recorded but the children were still enslaved by Taylor. It makes me sad, imagining the circumstances that may have led to the separation.

You might say, “Laura, you’re living in a former Confederate state. What did you expect?!” Fair point. But Loudoun County was, in fact, fiercely divided in this respect. Slave ownership was most prevalent in the county’s southeast and southwest regions. The central and northern regions were farmed by Germans and Quakers, who opposed enslavement. The 1860 census reported 670 slave owners, and 5,501 enslaved people. Many farms had enslaved labor but large plantations were uncommon.

Source: Friends of the Thomas Balch Library

In contrast to Timothy, consider his cousin Yardley (1794-1868), who was not only a notable mapmaker, but also an ardent abolitionist. As early as 1824, Yardley was President of the Manumission and Emigration Society of Loudoun. In 1828, he was convicted and fined for helping an enslaved man attempt escape. In 1845, Yardley raised funds to provide legal support to a freed slave who was kidnapped. The woman won her appeal; this was the only recorded Southern court ruling in favor of a former enslaved individual against a white citizen who claimed legal ownership over them. In 1857 a broadside accused Yardley of assisting enslaved people in Loudoun and nearby Fauquier counties, calling him chief of the local abolitionist clan.¹

I’m betting Timothy and Yardley weren’t close. Thanksgiving dinners would have been awkward, to say the least. But it also appears Timothy was the odd one out among the Taylors. The Willow Greens property returned to Quaker ownership after the deaths of Timothy and his wife Harriet, when in 1885 Timothy’s nephew Charles added Timothy’s landholdings to his own. I guess every family has one …

1. Wikipedia. Yardley Taylor.