****************************************************************************
File contributed to the Fulton County ILGenWeb Project
Copyright 2008, all rights reserved.

These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format 
without the written consent of the author at http://fulton.ilgenweb.net.

****************************************************************************

Source: Portrait and Biographical Album of Fulton County
Biographical Publishing Co., Chicago, 1890

****************************************************************************

The Biography of Benjamin TAYLOR, M. D. 

Pages 333-334, transcribed in full by Danni Hopkins 

[Surnames: CLARK, GIBSON, RICHARDSON, TAYLOR, WAY] 

    
BENJAMIN TAYLOR, M. D., a retired physician, practiced his profession in Vermont several years. In 1882 he began to give his attention to the culture of fruit, and has a fine fruit farm of forty-seven and one-third acres a half mile from the city, which he is managing very successfully. He has here a valuable orchard of four hundred apple trees, two hundred pear trees, and a few of peach, plum, etc., besides eleven acres devoted to small fruits. He finds a ready sale for his fruit, which is of a superior quality and comprises many choice varieties. 
    
The Doctor is a Pennsylvanian by birth, born in Chester County, April 5, 1829. He springs from the same family from which came the late Bayard Taylor, traveler, poet and author, and at the time of his death United States Minister of the German Court. The father of our subject, whose given name was like his own, is thought to have been born in the same county as his son, while his father, Abraham Taylor, was either born in England or was a native of this country and born of English parents. He was a resident of Chester County during his last years. 
    
Benjamin Taylor, Sr., was reared to agricultural pursuits, and followed farming all her days. He married Hannah Richardson, who spent her entire life in Chester County, surviving her husband many years. Mr. Taylor bought a farm in Pennsbury Township, Chester County, and there he died in 1832. He and his wife were the parents of thirteen children, of whom seven were reared, namely: Benjamin, Eliza, Newton, Clarissa, Caleb, Sarah and Hannah. Newton served in the Mexican War, and died two or three days after his return from disease contracted in the army. Hannah married Emmor Way, and lives in Chester County. Caleb lives in Wilmington, Del. 
    
The subject of this sketch was next to the youngest child in the parental family. He attended school quite steadily in his youth, and later only in the winter seasons, as he had to work on his father's farm the rest of the year. He remained in Chester County until 1859, and in the fall of that year emigrated westward, coming by rail to Johnstown, Pa., thence by canal to Pittsburg, from there by the Ohio, Mississippi and Illinois Rivers to Sharp's Landing, in Schuyler County, this State, whence he made his way to McDonough County. He there bought a tract of wild land, located in Eldorado Township. At that time the prairie was sparsely settled, as the early pioneers had selected the timber land, thinking the open prairie worthless for agricultural purposes. Deer were abundant and furnished good fare for the table of the settlers. The Doctor's first work was to erect a log cabin on his tract of prairie, and he then broke forty acres of land and sowed it to wheat. The next year he traded that place for a tract of improved land adjoining. About that time he decided to turn his attention to medicine, and immediately entered upon his studies with Dr. Ebenezer Clark, a pioneer physician of Industry Township. 
    
In 1855, our subject started upon his career as a physician. In 1857, he sold his McDonough County farm, and removing to Sheridan County, Mo., purchased a farm joining Keatville, the county seat. He resided there until the spring of 1860, when he sold his place to an advantage and returning to Illinois, established himself in his profession in Vermont, and was actively engaged in his vocation here several years. Though he has now abandoned his professional life, his old friends and patients often call upon him to administer to their ills, preferring his services to those of the younger doctors who have taken his place. 
    
In 1853, Dr. Taylor contacted a matrimonial alliance with Miss Mary Clark, a native of the State of New York, and a daughter of Ebenezer and Julia Clark. Of the children of that marriage the following five are living--Annie, Marietta, Clara, Elmer and Howard. Our subject's union with his present wife was consummated in 1970. Mrs. Taylor was formerly Miss Gabriella Gibson, a native of McDonough County, and a daughter of William and Mary Gibson. The Doctor and his wife have six children living, as follows: William, Frank, Jesse, Lillie, Maude and Blanche.