From “Family history of the Joseph Taylor, Jr. & Sarah Best Family”
by Shari H Franke
Allen Taylor, the fourth child and second Son of Joseph Taylor, Jr. and Sarah Best, was born 13 December 1789 at Martin County, North Carolina. He grew up on the Taylor Plantation with loving parents, brothers and sisters. Aunts and uncles and many cousins also lived nearby. Allen was about 19 years of age when he and his family moved from Edgecombe County, North Carolina to Warren County, Kentucky about 1808.
Allen married LaVina Cherry on 5 February 1811 at Warren County, Kentucky. William, her father, gave consent. Joseph Taylor, his father, was bondsman. Robert Daugherty, son-in-law to Moses Taylor of the Gasper River Taylors, crossed the Gasper River to marry them. LaVina, the daughter of William Cherry, Jr. and his first wife Lottie Hopkins, was also the stepdaughter of Allen’s sister, Frances Taylor Cherry.
Allen Taylor farmed 92 acres of the eastern portion of the Joseph Taylor, Jr. land. Excellent springs on the property provided the water they needed. After Allen’s older brother, William Taylor, left the area about 1830 or ’31, William sold his share to youngest brother Joseph Best Taylor. Then on 28 October 1843, an agreement was drawn up between Allen and Joseph Best Taylor about a new land division of their properties.
They agreed that the “said dividing line shall commence on a beech and honey locust at or near the forks of a branch thence eastwardly with the meanders of the branch dividing the spring known as old Mrs. Taylor’s Spring to a honey locust just above the head of the spring thence South east to two black oaks thence North to a hickory thence North to a black oak corner to the old survey & that the said Joseph and Allen shall severally hold as they now occupy opposite to the afd line and the same shall be the boundary of each.”
Nora Young Ferguson said: “Joseph (Best) bad a house on his land built of logs. It is still standing (1957) and until a recent date, only descendants lived in it. It has been modernized. When Dr. Rue Overton Basham, a great-grandson of Joseph (Best) and Polly Ann Hudnall was growing up on this farm, he installed a hydraulic ram at the large springs under a steep hill. Allen built the large two room, two story log house in which Hon. Edward Green Young brought up his large family. Dr. Sim Taylor, a great-grandson of Allen and LaVina Cherry Taylor, while he was going to medical school or teaching, during vacations, added an ell to the house and put weatherboard and plastering on it. The old house was a great place for us children to explore. There were green and blue bitters bottles by the dozens in the dairy house and the old log smoke house. We carried them out and threw them against the cliff above the spring to make a big noise. They are memories now but for antiques they would now be worth many dollars. There was an attic filled with flax wheel, spinning wheel, and stacks of old papers that I wish I could see again. (Note: this author too!) No telling the history they contained. There were tea roses in the yard and catnip, horehound, heal all, sage and large asparagus bed that had been brought from North Carolina. There were a few pieces of farm machinery in the barns that created a lot of interest for us, especially a seed fan to fan the chaff out of wheat, oats and other small grains.”
Mrs. Ferguson also told the following interesting story about Allen and family: “When Joseph and Robert, sons of Allen and LaVina Cherry Taylor, were about ten and twelve years of age, (about 1842) their father rode a horse to Polkville, Kentucky and bought a young Negro boy named Jack and let him ride behind him home. He bought him from Tom Elrod. When they arrived at the Taylor farm, Joseph and Robert were burning brush and the smoke had blackened their faces. The little Negro boy said, ‘Goody, Goody, I’ll have a little Nigger to play with!’ Jack was a familiar figure in the neighborhood for all our lives until a few years ago. It was always home to him. He loved to stay around where his ‘Ole Massa and Missus’ had lived. He always wanted to stay with us children when Mother and Dad went shopping for a day, We always voted to have him in the place of an old maiden Aunt. He let us do as we pleased. He was the news dispenser of the neighborhood–could tell funny yarns and eat lots of hot biscuits.’
Cousin LaVelle Moates Vaughn of LaMesa, California, (who is the daughter of Lassie Taylor and Elliott Moates) told the author of this book in a letter dated 15 August 1993, the following about Jack, “Uncle Jack Taylor lived to be 104 years, and was buried at the foot of the Taylor Cemetery with others who were slaves in that generation. I have a faint memory of him.” She also stated in a phone conversation with the author that “Uncle Jack had a daughter named Sally, who married Jim McClung. They moved away. Jack probably died in the mid-1920’s, when I was a young girl.”
Allen Taylor, a religious man, was on the first Board of Trustees of the Green River Union Church. The church was first organized in James Hudnall’s house before 1820.
Allen’s nephew, Pleasant Green Taylor, went to Warren County, Kentucky on an L.D.S. Mission in 1871 and 1872. He recorded in his Family Record about his Uncle Allen: “On the 15th of November 1871 I started on my mission to Kentucky. I enjoyed myself splendidly. Baptised one person into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We had a great many kinfolks in that state. One day while visiting my aged Uncle (Allen), 95 years old, a Campbellite minister was present. On learning that I was a Mormon Elder, commenced pacing up and down the floor abusing our people. I finally commenced walking the floor also. He at last exclaimed: ‘Brigham Young is an imposter!’ At this, I with all my force struck him. His head and shoulders striking the floor first, and the blood oozed freely from the wound. My Uncle ordered the Minister to leave his house! The people in general sustained me in what I had done. On the following Saturday, he was found to visit a house of ill fame and was dismissed from his position. Brigham Young sustained me in defending the Prophet of God.”
Allen Taylor died 13 September 1878, in his 88th year, at Warren County, Kentucky. He was buried at the old Taylor Family Cemetery near Richardsville, where he lived most of his life. A Will for Allen Taylor, dated 8 July 1873 in Warren County, Kentucky, was proven there 28 October 1878.
LaVina Cherry was born 18 August 1794, at Edgecombe County, North Carolina, the daughter of William Cherry, Jr. and Lottie Hopkins. When LaVina was ten years
old, her father William gave her a Negro slave named Dinah as a Deed of Gift, according to the Land records of Edgecombe County, North Carolina. (11-375, 2 December 1804.) It must have been a hard thing for LaVina to lose her mother at such a young age; however, we have every reason to believe that she came to love her new stepmother, Frances Taylor Cherry.
When LaVina came to Warren County, Kentucky, she was about 14 years of age. As she grew up and matured, she fell in love with Allen Taylor, brother of her stepmother Frances. After the two young people married, they continued to live on the same land for the rest of their lives. They raised a large and noble family of eight sons and four daughters, who proudly carried on their names.
LaVina died 15 December 1853. (Some other records said she died 17 November 1878, but the Family Bible of son William Cherry Taylor said she died 15 December 1853.) Her tombstone is very hard to read, but indicates she was born 18 of Aug. 17–, and that she died Dec – ——. LaVina was buried in the old Taylor Family Cemetery near Richardsville, Warren, Kentucky.
Allen Taylor and LaVina Cherry’s children were: William Cherry, Aaron, Henry H., Tabitha, Alfred, Frances, Sarah Jane, Samuel Dawson, John Allen, Robert Benjamin Franklin, Joseph and Etna Ann.
