Fayette County, West Virginia - Biography: J. ALFRED TAYLOR ********************************************************************** USGENWEB 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. ********************************************************************** WEST VIRGINIA In History, Life, Literature and Industry The Lewis Publishing Company 1928 - Volume 5, page 314-315 J. ALFRED TAYLOR, editor and publisher of the Pick and Shovel, which is a strong and influential weekly newspaper issued from its well equipped plant at Fayetteville, judicial center of Fayette County, has been prominently concerned in newspaper enterprise and inently concerned in newspaper enterprise and public affairs in this section of West Virginia, has had much of leadership in popular sentiment and action, and his hold upon the confidence and good will of the people of the Sixth Congressional District was significantly shown in his election as its representative in the United States Congress in 1922, his service in this office having continued until March 4, 1927. Mr. Taylor was born in Lawrence County, Ohio, September 25, 1878, and is a son of James C. and Malinda (Bryant) Taylor, both of whom are born and reared in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, where James C. Taylor continued to be engaged in farm enterprise, on the parental homestead, until he removed to Lawrence County, Ohio, where he became a progressive exponent of the same line of industry, besides having been engaged in the mercantile business at Arabia, of which village he was postmaster several years. About 1890 he returned to West Virginia and established the family home in Fayette County, where he followed the trade of brick and stone mason during the remainder of his active career and where he died in 1918, at the age of sixty-eight years. His father, Garrett Taylor, was born in Bedford County, Virginia, where he farmed in Monroe and Greenbrier counties, besides having been one of the early carpenters and builders of this section of the state, and having finally engage d in the meat market business. His death occurred in 1902 and his remains rest beside those of his wife in the cemetery at Alderson. Mrs. Malinda (Bryant) Taylor was a daughter of William and Minerva Bryant, sterling representatives of pioneer families in Greenbrier County, and her death occurred at Ironton, Ohio in 1889, she having been an earnest member of the Methodist Church and her husband having been a member of the Baptist Church. Of the three children the first was William, who died in infancy; Hattie is the wife of W. A. Soylez, of Fayetteville; and J. Alfred, of this review, is the youngest of the number. After receiving due discipline in the public schools at Ironton, Ohio, J. Alfred Taylor there initiated a virtual apprenticeship to the printers trade in the office of the Daily Irontonian, and upon coming with his parents to Greenbrier County West Virginia he was there associated five years with the weekly paper known as The Man. He there allied himself with the Alderson Advertiser at the time of its establishing and five months later he purchased this paper, of which he continued editor and publisher until 1905, when he sold the plant and business and established his residence at Fayetteville, where he was associated three years with the Fayette Free press. He next passed about five years with the Fayette Sun, and in 1913 he here founded the Fayette Democrat, of which he continued editor and publisher until 1916, when he sold the same. He thereafter served one term in the Lower House of the State Legislature, and he gave a period of effective service as a reporter for the C harleston Leader, a daily paper in the capital city of the sate. In 19197 Mr. Taylor founded at Mount Hope, Fayette County, the weekly paper known as the Mount Hope Leader, and he continued the active management of the same until the spring of 1919, when he sold out. In 1920 he was again elected to the House of Delegates of the West Virginia Legislature, and had the distinction of being the only Democrat to be elected in Fayette County. He retained this office until December, 1922, in which year had come a more distinctive mark of the popular appreciation of his ability and loyal service, in that he was then elected representative of the Sixth West Virginia District in Congress. In the national legislature he gave characteristically loyal and constructive service in behalf of his home state and the advancing of wise legislation of general order, and in 1924 he was reelected - the only Democratic congressman to be elected from West Virginia. That he represented a district strongly Rep ublican gives evidence of his inviolable place in popular confidence and esteem in that district. Mr. Taylor was assigned a major committee of the House of Representatives, that of the committee on naval affairs, and in Congress he introduced a resolution of inquiry concerning the proposed flight of the naval dirigible Shenandoah to the North Pole, this resolution leading to the cancelling of the trip by President Coolidge. Mr. Taylor gained no minor fame as "the Walt Mason of Congress" by reason of his production of a number of prose poems, some of which found their way into the Congressional Record. Popular estimate pronounced him one of the best congressmen ever sent from the Sixth District of West Virginia, and he has recently been nominated as the Democratic candidate for governor of West Virginia. In 1920 Mr. Taylor established his present weekly paper at Fayetteville, the Pick and Shovel, and he makes the paper a stanch exponent of local interests and especially of the cause of the Democratic party. Mr. Taylor is a past master of Lafayette Lodge No. 57, A. F. and A. M., and his Masonic affiliations include his membership in the Mystic Shrine and in the Shrine Club at Mount Hope, where he has membership in Sewell Chapter No. 24, R. A. M., and Mount Hope Commandery, No. 22, Knight Templars. He is affiliated with the order of the Eastern Star, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Loyal Order of Moose, the Junior Order United American Mechanics, and with the Improved order of Red men. It is needless to say that Mr. Taylor has had much of leadership in the councils of the Democratic party in West Virginia. He is an elder in the Presbyterian Church, in which he gave prolonged service as Sunday School superintendent, his wife being likewise zealous in the affairs of the church. July 25, 1900, marked the marriage of Mr. Taylor and Miss Bina E. Taylor, who was born at Hinton, this state, a daughter of C. L. and Frances (Gwinn) Taylor, who now reside in the City of Huntington, where C. L. Taylor is a prominent mason contractor, his father, Capt. Silas Taylor, having been an officer in the Confederate army in the Civil war. James Alfred, Jr., eldest of the surviving children of Mr. and Mrs. J. Alfred TAylor, is associated with his father's newspaper business. He married Miss Ada McVeigh and they have a fine little son, James Alfred III. The younger children, Louise, Carl, Paul Chilton and Jean, remain at the parental home. One deceased child of the subject of this review was the daughter Della, who was twenty years of age at the time of her death in 1920. Another child, Clark Lee, died in infancy, in 1915. Transcribed by (MRS GINA M REASONER), 1999 **********************************************************************