Yardley Taylor

Yardley Taylor (1794-1868) Virginia Quaker abolitionist and map maker. He devoted much of his life to anti-slavery and progressive causes.

Yardley Taylor

Map of Loudoun County, Virginia, by Yardley Taylor, made in the year 1853

Yardley Taylor (December 12, 1794 - February 20, 1868) was a member of the Society of Friends (Quaker) living in the Quaker village of Goose Creek, Loudoun County, Virginia. Though living in a Southern slave state, Taylor was an abolitionist and devoted much of his life to anti-slavery causes. As a professional occupation, Yardley Taylor was an arborist and ran a horticultural business in Goose Creek. He also served as a Loudoun County rural postal carrier. Taylor's knowledge of the roads, byways as well as the landowners of Loudoun county, led him in 1853 to make a highly detailed map of the county.

As early as 1824 Yardley Taylor was involved in anti-slavery efforts. He was President of the Manumission and Emigration Society of Loudoun, with his brother Henry serving as the Society's secretary. Taylor regularly printed articles in the Loudoun newspapers with information and mission statements of the Manumission and Emigration Society's goals, which were to buy enslaved men and women and pay for their freedom, then repatriation to Liberia, where they could live as citizens in a free, democratic society. This effort was widely supported by many of Taylor's fellow Quakers and other anti-slavery advocates. However the notion of "colonization" societies eventually proved unpopular with freed blacks, who understandably didn't want to leave their homes and families in America in order to experience freedom. Also, the costs of buying enslaved men and women, then sending them across the ocean to start a new life in an unknown land, proved way beyond the means abolitionists could afford.

In 1828 Yardley Taylor was arrested for helping an enslaved man known only as Harry attempt to escape bondage in Loudoun County, northern Virginia. Harry was captured in Maryland and documents found on him included a letter from Yardley Taylor to fellow Quaker Jonathan Jessup who lived in York, Pennsylvania. Asking his Pennsylvania friend Jessup to help Harry, Taylor's letter also describes Harry's dire circumstances: the enslaved man learned he was about to be sold South, away from his family. Taylor gave Harry a handwritten list of towns and mileage leading to York, Pennsylvania and this list was also found on Harry at the time of his capture.

Taylor eventually pled guilty to Loudoun County's charge of "enticing, persuading and advising a certain slave named Harry" to escape. Yardley Taylor paid a fine. Harry's fate is unknown.

Hannah Brown Taylor (1795-1880) Quaker wife of Yardley Taylor, raised eight children and supported anti-slavery causes.

Through the 1830's Yardley Taylor and his wife, Hannah Brown Taylor, raised eight children on their farm, Evergreen, outside Goose Creek village. The Taylors continued with their arborist/nursery work, focusing on apple trees. By 1845, documents and letters again show Yardley Taylor to be involved in a high profile case, this time one of national importance. A young African American mother, Kitty Payne, and her three children, had been freed by her former owner. Payne moved her young family to Pennsylvania, where she supported herself as a laundress. But on the night of July 24, 1845 Payne and her children were kidnapped by slave catchers and bound into a wagon to take back into Virginia and sell into slavery. An extensive study of the Kitty Payne kidnapping and subsequent court case was done by Meghan Linsley Bishop and can be found here. Yardley Taylor, along with Quakers from the Pennsylvania and Virginia communities who knew of Kitty Payne's kidnapping, raised money for her to hire a lawyer to appeal her kidnapping. The court trial, held in Rappahannock County, Virginia, resulted in Kitty Payne and her children regaining their freedom. It is the only recorded Southern court ruling in favor of a former enslaved individual against a white citizen claiming legal ownership over them. Original trial documents of this case: Samuel Maddox, Jr. v. Kitty Payne can be seen at the Rappahannock County Courthouse Clerk's Office, in Washington, Virginia.

In 1857, Yardley Taylor was the subject of an anonymously written political broadside, posted around Loudoun County. The broadside was a long screed against Taylor, focusing on his abolitionist work, and naming him the "chief of the local abolitionist clan" and "president of the underground railroad." An original copy of the 1857 broadside is in the Thomas Balch Archives Library, located in Leesburg, Loudoun County, Virginia. The author of the broadside is thought to be James Treyhorn, a pro-slavery Loudoun County citizen. Treyhorn had attended a 1856 meeting held in Goose Creek which had been also attended by Yardley Taylor and other anti-slavery Quakers. The meeting had descended into chaos over the topic of slavery, resulting in one young Quaker fleeing Virginia for his own safety.

The Civil War from 1861-1865 affected Quakers living in Loudoun County, Virginia with particular hardships. They were caught between two enemies: Confederate soldiers didn't trust them; Quakers were known to be against slavery and the nation's disunion. At the same time, U.S. Federal troops moving through northern Virginia saw the state's population, including Quakers, as the enemy and treated them as such. An example is the "Burning Raid" of November/December 1864, when citizens of Shenandoah Valley saw their livestock driven away, crops destroyed and barns burned. The destruction was carried out by Union troops acting on U.S. Army Lieut. General Ulysses Grant's orders. Yardley and Hannah Taylor, along with fellow Quakers living in the region, lost barns and property in the raid.

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