Oliver Swayne Taylor (1784-1885) was born near New Ipswich, New Hampshire, December 17, 1784 and died in Auburn, New York, April 19, 1885. Oliver and Catharine (Catherine) Gould Parsons (1791-1865) were married Nov 16, 1816, probably in Enfield MA, where her parents lived. Oliver was the son of Bridget Walton (1746-1851) and Thaddeus Taylor (1744-?). Oliver was the eighth of nine children, four sons and five daughters.

Oliver attended Dartmouth College, graduating in 1809.[. . .]

Charles Taylor (1819-1897), Oliver's son, recorded that all of Oliver's sisters married and many of Oliver's siblings were long-lived, though none as long as Oliver. [. . .]

Long life, in Oliver's case at least, was credited to daily disciplines of diet and exercise. Walking was a favorite activity, which Oliver adopted early and practiced three or four times a day throughout his life. His son Charles has written arrestingly of his Dad. "With an appetite that was always keen, he did not indulge it to the extent of its demand, but left off in the midst of his meals with better appetite than he began." [. . .]

Oliver is remembered in the family as a literal teetotaler, who drank but one cup of weak tea or coffee, never drank cold water and as son Charles, curiously wrote, "not once a year felt any thirst." [. . .]

Oliver and all of his brothers were said to have avoided tobacco in any form. [. . .].

Oliver's early education was at the public school in the New Ipswich district (NH), which was open to him only six weeks each winter and perhaps a few more in the summer. The scant opportunity for formal study was owing to the inability of the poor population to subscribe the school for longer periods. Despite these limitations, Oliver was encouraged, evidently at home, to think of higher education. On his mother's Walton-Swayne side, he was descended from physicians, including his uncle and namesake Oliver Swayne, his grandfather Thomas and his double great grandfather Jeremy/Jeremiah Swayne.

As an adolescent, Oliver boarded at and attended the Academy of New Ipswich and there determined to go to college. During the year following his graduation from the academy Oliver prepared for his college examination by teaching school for five months, doing farm work and studying Latin. The family has passed down a record of his youthful accomplishments during that year. In a few brief months, young Oliver is said to have mastered Latin grammar well enough to read through a lessons book in five days; he also read nine books of Virgil's AENEID, other Latin classics and the Four Gospels (presumably in the Latin Vulgate).

Oliver Swayne Taylor entered Dartmouth College in 1805. His class of forty included Levi Woodbury, who had been Oliver's roommate at the Academy and was so at Dartmouth. Woodbury became a U.S. Senator, New Hampshire Governor, Secretary of the Navy and then Treasury in President Jackson's and Van Buren's cabinet and a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1845-51), appointed by President Polk. Although Dartmouth had only four faculty members, Oliver was exposed there to the wider world. Daniel Webster (Dartmouth class of 1800) spoke to the Phi Beta Kappa Society, of which Oliver was a member. While at Dartmouth, Oliver taught three winters in the district school he had attended and in his senior year was principal of the New Ipswich Academy, where he had only recently been a student himself. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1809. After college, Oliver taught for three years at the New Ipswich Academy.

Oliver also attended medical school at Dartmouth, graduating in 1813. The then tiny Dartmouth Medical School (founded in 1797) was only the fourth medical school established in North America, having been started by Nathan Smith (1762-1829). Smith subsequently moved on to teach medicine at Yale, a newer medical school founded under Yale President Timothy Dwight; Dwight was a distant relative of Oliver's wife, Catherine, through her mother's family. [. . .] There were no more than three or four lecturers, when Oliver studied medicine at Dartmouth. The medical students were expected to supplement their academic program by way of apprenticeships.

A calling into religious service came early to Oliver Swayne Taylor and shaped the remainder or his long life. His son, Charles, recorded that in 1812, while in medical school, Oliver made a public profession of his Christian faith, uniting with the Presbyterians. This personal commitment came during a period of religious revival and missionary fervor in America, remembered by historians as the "Second Great Awakening." Oliver Taylor's subsequent activities and associations show that he was an active participant in this movement.

Until 1817, Oliver practiced medicine in Dover, NH and in Belchertown and Hadley, MA. It is likely that Oliver met Catherine Gould Parsons (1791-1865) during his medical practice in Massachusetts. They married on Nov 16, 1816, and had five children: Catherine Gould Taylor (1817-1890); Elizabeth M. (abt 1816-1851), who married Delos M. Keeler (1815-1868); Charles Taylor (1819-1897); Henry Martyn Taylor (c 1825-?) and Edward Payson (Parsons?) Taylor (?-?). In Hadley, Oliver curtailed his medical career and devoted himself thereafter to the education of children and, in retirement, to prisoners.

In 1817, Oliver and Catherine moved to Boston. There, for five years, Oliver worked with Jeremiah Evarts at the American Board of Commissions for Foreign Missions (A.B.C.F.M.). He prepared articles for Evarts' religious publication, "The Panoplist Or the Christian's Armory," renamed "The Panoplist and Missionary Herald." Oliver was invited by Dr. Samuel Spring, one of the founders of the A.B.C.F.M., to go as a missionary doctor to Ceylon (HSri LankaH). Oliver agreed to go and was appointed as a missionary, but the funding fell through. While in Boston, Oliver became the director of one of the first Sunday Schools established in America, founded by the father of the inventor, Samuel B. Morse. While living in Boston, Oliver and Catherine Taylor became the parents of Betty Taylor Cook's great-grandfather, Charles Taylor (1819-1897).

Beginning in 1822 Oliver Taylor resumed teaching full time in Boston and Hadley, MA and virtually gave up the practice of medicine. (In later census records from Auburn NY, Oliver lists himself as a retired clergyman.) In 1826 he took charge of an academy at Homer, New York and in 1830 moved to Auburn, NY. Remembering that Oliver's mother's maiden name was Walton, we may speculate that re-settlement in Auburn may have been encouraged by the fact that a John Walton had received a grant of Revolutionary War Bounty Land in Cayuga County, NY. Between 1830 and 1850, son Charles Taylor reports, Oliver taught and supervised schools in Plattsburg and Henrietta, NY and also in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and South Carolina. These locations seem surprisingly extensive and unconnected. Perhaps an inquisitive descendent can track down the details.

Oliver was licensed to preach June 17, 1840 at Weedsport, in the Presbytery of Monroe, NY. He was fifty-six. Oliver preached frequently for the next ten years, in churches near the schools where he was teaching. In 1850, Oliver retired from public teaching and returned with Catherine to Auburn, where they remained the rest of their lives. Catherine was enrolled in the 1860 census but not the 1870. The Fort Hill Cemetery records indicate she died in 1865.

Retirement for Oliver Taylor was an opportunity to more fully engage in religious enterprises and to continue his teaching, both of private pupils and in the churches. Oliver usually taught Bible classes in one and sometimes two Presbyterian churches. In addition, for seventeen years, up to the age of 90, he conducted a Bible class in the state prison at Auburn. The classes were held at about 7:30 on Sunday mornings. On Sunday afternoons Oliver Taylor attended meetings at the "Home of the Friendless" in Auburn. [. . .]

Auburn, NY was notable for the vigorous anti-slavery environment that existed there prior to the Civil War. Auburn was the hometown of William Seward, who as governor of New York State, and then as United States Senator, was probably the most prominent and articulate anti-slavery politician in the country before 1860. Prior to Lincoln's election to the Presidency in that year, Seward campaigned hard for the Republican nomination, which Lincoln received. Seward lost the nomination because of the widely held opinion among Republicans, that Seward's anti-slavery views were too vigorously pressed and divisive. Republican convention delegates, even if personally sympathetic to Seward and perhaps holding views similar to his, concluded that Seward had little chance of winning the electoral votes of the slave-holding border states, Kentucky and Maryland.

A further, telling indication of the anti-slavery environment in Auburn was the welcome the community extended to anti-slavery proponent Harriet Tubman (1820-1913). She selected Auburn as her headquarters during her efforts to organize Quakers and other activists into the informal (and illegal) "Underground Railroad." This was a network of homes and farms which spirited escaped slaves from the South to Canada. William Seward, as governor of New York, helped Tubman secure property in Auburn for her headquarters. When Tubman got married in Auburn in 1859, her wedding was a grand and well publicized event.

After his stint as a teacher in South Carolina, and elsewhere, Oliver and Catherine Taylor returned to Auburn in 1850. They lived there during the intense decade prior to the Civil War, and for the rest of their lives. They may have moved to Auburn in order to live with one of their children. For whatever reason and we wish we knew what it was, Oliver and Catherine opted to live in one of the most vigorously anti-slavery communities in the United States. This environment stands in dramatic contrast to the circumstances of their son Charles, who, like his father, was a medical doctor and Christian minister, but who spent his long career in the South. [. . .]

In 1884, the Rev. Dr. Oliver Swayne Taylor‘s hundredth birthday was publicly celebrated in Auburn. Speeches were delivered; accolades were bestowed; Oliver was made a member of the local historical society. [. . .]

On April 21, 1885, Oliver Swayne Taylor was buried at Fort Hill Cemetery, 19 Fort Street, Auburn, New York (Glen Haven Section, Lot 3, grave 12), next to the grave of William Seward and not far from Harriet Tubman's. Catherine preceded Oliver in death by 20 years, and is also buried at Fort Hill Cemetery.

_________

This brief biography has been taken from Volume I of a book of family history entitled ALL OF THE ABOVE I, by Richard Baldwin Cook. For additional information, visit the contributor profile, #47181028.

_________

AWARENESS NOT CONVENTION TOOK SWAINE FAR

by

Richard Baldwin Cook
(copyright 2010)

Awareness, not convention, took Swaine far.
His father wanted Swaine to work the farm.
Each book Swaine read illumined a bright star,
Swaine might reach if he stretched a bit his arm.

Was brain, not arm that lifted Swaine above.
To Swaine Dartmouth its highest honors gave.
In humankind Swaine found his deepest love.
As doctor, Swaine nursed patients, each to save.

As teacher, Swaine earned national renown.
As preacher, Swaine beseeched high morals keep.
In old age, Swaine taught prisoners in his town.
Swaine died at one hundred, in peaceful sleep.

Oliver Swaine Taylor, splendid man.
Improved upon each work that he began.


Note: the sonnet is crafted in the recollection that his parents called our subject by his middle name.