Obit of William Zachary Taylor Submitted by: Karen Mazzol 12 Sep 2001 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Purcell Register Saturday, March 3, 1888 WILLIAM ZACHARY TAYLOR DEAD AT 114 WILLIAM ZACHARY TAYLOR, an aged Negro who has been living with ex-Sheriff JACK HODGE, at Hodge's Park, died there on January 23 and was buried the following day. The old man was 114 years of age on the 7th of this month, having been born January 7, 1774, the year before the battles of Lexington and six months before the signing of the American Declaration of Independence. The deceased was born a slave, in the family of ZACHARY TAYLOR, ten years before the future General and President made his appearance on this mundane sphere. He accompanied General TAYLOR through the Mexican War, was at Palo Alto, Monterey, Resaca de la Palma and Buena Vista, and returned to Louisiana with the hero of the Mexican War. When GENERAL TAYLOR became president in 1849 WILLIAM accompanied his master to Washington and remained there until the death of his illustrious master in the following year. He was an attaché of the Taylor family as a favorite slave thereafter being sometimes in the company of young Mas'r Dick" afterwards GEN. DICK TAYLOR of the Confederate army or young 'Misses" the wife of JEFFERSON DAVIS. He accompanied GEN. DICK TAYLOR in the Red River campaign, inaugurated by GEN. BANKS, and became a free man by PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S emancipation proclamation in 1863. Just when or how he drifted to the North is not known, but with the downfall of the Confederacy, when its President donned petticoats and GEN. DICK TAYLOR took refuge in England, thus virtually upsetting the Taylor family for years it is supposed that WILLIAM ZACHARY found himself without a home. He was already an old man of 91 when the war ended, and the family to whom he had belonged were scattered. For the last fifteen years he has been taken care of by ex-Sheriff HODGE, who appears to have thought a good deal of the old man. When he died of an old age the other day, MR HODGE procured a metallic case in which to enclose the remains, and had him interred as became the man who had been the trusted servant of two Generals and two Presidents and three men whose names will ever figure on the pages of American history - Cairo (Ill); Telegram