Biography of J R Taylor, Greene Co, AR

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Submitted by: Michael Brown
        Date: 5 Sep 1998
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
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Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northeast Arkansas

page 175

J. R. Taylor, ex-editor of the Paragould Press, was born in Williamson
County, Tenn., in 1854, and was left an orphan at two years of age. He spent his
boyhood days in Humphreys County, Tenn., receiving an ordinary common-school
education, and having no means by inheritance, was obliged to start out at an early
age to support himself. He worked for wages on a farm six years, and in 1874 went to
West Tennessee, where he spent five years teaching in the common schools of Obion.
Gibson and Madison Counties. He was elected to the Academic Chair in Odd Fellow's
College, at Humboldt, but failed to receive notice of such election in time to accept
the position. He commenced the newspaper business at Bell's Depot in 1880, and
published a paper at Dyersburg one year. He was married in January, 1882, to Miss
Lucy White, of Jackson, Tenn., and in March, 1883, he moved to Jonesboro, Ark., where
he established the Jonesboro Democrat. He was elected mayor of that city in 1886, and
resigned the editorship of the Democrat. Before the term of mayor had expired he
bought the Paragould Press, and moved to Paragould. In December, 1888, he sold the
Press to W. A. H. McDaniel, and established the Greene County Record in May, 1889. He
was a candidate for State senator in 1888, but withdrew from the race in favor of
Hon. B. H. Crowley, an old citizen and politician, it appearing that his age, long
residence and prominence with the people during the war, and just afterward, made him
a probably stronger leader of the Democratic party. Mr. Taylor served as clerk of the
senate judiciary committee of the last legislature, and reported [p.175] senate
proceedings for the Daily Gazette. He is a practical printer and journalist, and a
stanch Democrat, but the unflinching foe of monopoly. He read law but has never
entered the practice. Having consolidated the Record with the Press, he is now
exclusively in the line of book and job printing, having the only exclusive job
printing establishment in Northeast Arkansas.