Taylor, Yardley

Geographer, surveyor, abolitionist, and chronicler of Loudoun County, Va., in the mid-19th century.

Yardley Taylor (1794-1863) lived in Goose Creek, now known as Lincoln, an area of Loudoun County, Va., populated largely by members of the Society of Friends. Taylor was a prominent Quaker and outspoken abolitionist. He was rumored to have helped several slaves escape Virginia, in violation of fugitive slave laws, and in 1824 served as the first president of the Loudoun Manumission and Emigration Society. His vocal opposition to slavery led one Loudoun County resident to publish a broadside against him, calling him the "chief of the abolitionist clan in Loudoun" and denouncing his anti-slavery actions as "Monstrous!" Though Taylor worked as a letter carrier and professional horticulturalist, he is best known for his work as a surveyor and mapmaker. In 1853, he published a "Map of Loudoun County, Virginia, from Actual Surveys" and an accompanying Memoir of Loudoun County Virginia. The map identifies landowners, mills, and places of worship in addition to mapping watercourses and roads. Taylor's Memoir describes in great detail the physical features of Loudoun County, the value of its land and products, and comments at length about its population. In addition to making maps, Taylor used his skills to produce land surveys for individuals. In Virginia, surveyors used the British system of metes and bounds for surveys, or descriptions of property lines based on markers. As he surveyed a parcel, Taylor recorded his measurements and the markers in a notebook; he would use the measurements to produce a completed survey for his client.

The Taylor family left Devonshire, England, in the late 17th century and settled in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. Much of the family relocated to Bucks County, Pa., in the 18th century, and several members eventually moved to Loudoun County, Virginia. Members of the Society of Friends, the Taylors settled in Goose Creek, an established community of Quakers in central Loudoun County. Much of the family is buried in the Goose Creek Burial Ground.

Yardley Taylor (1794-1863) was a son of Bernard Taylor (1771-1848), one of the Taylors that settled in Loudoun County. Yardley Taylor was a surveyor, mapmaker, letter carrier, and nurseryman. In 1851, he compiled a book of genealogical information called Descendants of Benjamin and Hannah (Towne) Taylor, Who Were Married in 1719. As part of that volume, he drafted a family tree that begins in 1719, with the marriage of Benjamin Taylor (1696-1780) to Hannah Towne (1698-1780) in Pennsylvania and continues through six generations.