Jarvis Pike Taylor, a successful and energetic farmer of Lauderdale County was
born in Gibson County July 15, 1834. His father was William Taylor, a native
of North Carolina; he moved to Tennessee when a young man, and spent a few
years in Middle Tennessee, then moved to Gibson County, where he married Nancy
A. Acuff, a native of Bedford County. They had three sons, our subject being
the second born, and the only one now living. He was a farmer, and died in
Madison County, February 18, 1875, and the mother died at the homestead in
Gibson County, February 6, 1857. Our subject was raised on a farm; when
twenty-one years of age he commenced business as an overseer, and has since
managed large plantations for others. He enlisted in the Confederate Army,
in the Sixth Tennessee Infantry, but was soon assigned to the quartermaster’s
department, where he served thirteen months. Mr. Taylor was married in Gibson
County, Tenn., November 28, 1857, to Margaret J. Wheeler, daughter of Elisha
Wheeler, a farmer. Five sons and two daughters were born to this marriage —
four now living: Nancy E., James Pike, John M. and George W. Mrs. Taylor was
born in Rutherford County, January 21, 1839. Our subject was an old line Whig,
but votes with the Democratic party now, and is a Mason and a member of the K.
of H. He is now managing the Henning plantation, twelve miles north of Ripley
and five miles from the Mississippi River. During the war his brother, John
M. Taylor, was arrested as a citizen and placed in prison, and died from the
effects of the hardships and exposure November 30, 1864. William C. enlisted
in the Confederate Army, and belonged to the Sixth Tennessee Infantry, and
went all through the war, being in the battles of Chickamaugua, Missionary
Ridge, and all of the Georgia campaign, and with Hood’s command during the
battles of Franklin and Nashville. Mr. Taylor is a man of progressive ideas
and sound judgment, and, with the proprietor of the plantation, is the first
to adopt all kinds of improved agricultural machinery.

Goodspeed’s Biographies of Lauderdale Co., TN