Taylor Family Cemetery

Taylor Family Cemetery. Autauga County. , The Taylor Family Cemetery and surrounding brick wall date to the mid-1820s. The wall contains bricks hand-made in Autauga County with Alabama red clay. The family of Benjamin Taylor, Sr., (1761-1836) started the cemetery. Benjamin married Susannah Fullilove (1773-1856) in 1788. Circa 1816-1817, the Taylor family left Georgia in wagons and made their way into what became the Alabama Territory. They first settled at Cahaba Valley, near present-day Montevallo. They remained there for about a year. Sometime in the early-1820s, Benjamin moved his family further south, settling in western Autauga County. The family established a large plantation five miles west of Autaugaville. Benjamin and Susannah had ten children: Elizabeth (Betsey) Taylor (1789-1857); Polly Ursa Taylor (1792-1826), wife of Charles Graves; Frances Kennan Taylor (1796-1873), wife of Joseph D. Lee; Martha Taylor (1797-1873), wife of Benjamin Davis; John Fullilove Taylor; Susan Taylor (1803-1885), wife of John Chappell; Benjamin Taylor, Jr. (1805-1841); Sarah Wooten Taylor (1811-1887), wife of Henry Davis Holmes; Asbury Cooke Taylor (1812-1860); and Thomas Franklin Taylor (1813-1821)., The Taylor Family Cemetery contains 41 marked graves. The earliest grave is that of Polly (Taylor) Graves, who died in 1826. The north side of the cemetery contains indications of unmarked graves of enslaved people. The patriarch, Benjamin Taylor, Sr., died in 1836. His widow, Susannah, died in 1856. Both are buried in the family cemetery and are surrounded by multiple generations of descendants. Persons of interest buried in the cemetery include Thomas Denny Cory, Sr. (1826-1890), who represented Autauga County in the Alabama State Legislature in the 1880s and also served on board of directors at the University of Alabama; Lewis Tyus Taylor (1846-1905), who served on the Autauga County Commission in the 1880s; and Benjamin Davis, Sr. (1779-1863), who served in the War of 18 12. Confederate veterans buried in the cemetery are William Caver, Henry A. Jordan, Robert Henry King, Lewis Tyus Taylor, and James Wilkinson. The Old Autauga Historical Society maintains the Taylor Family Cemetery.