Who was Robert T. Taylor?

Taylor was probably born in Talbot County, Georgia in 1842 into slavery. It is in Talbot County that the Federal Census of 1870 found him. Robert is listed as an illiterate mulatto farm laborer (age 28), living with his wife Savannah A. Giddings (age 22) near O’Neal’s Mill. They married in 1866 and their four sons were born in Georgia between 1867 and 1872. Sometime after 1872, Robert Taylor moved his family to Texas. The 1880 Federal Census shows the Taylor family living in the White Rock Creek area of Dallas County. Four sons are listed: Polk, age 13; Robert, age 12: Gustus, age 10, and the  youngest, Walter, age 8. All of the boys worked on the farm, but the three oldest also attended school.

Robert T. Taylor was a successful black farmer in Dallas County who against the odds of tenancy was able to save money and buy his land.  Most tenants or sharecroppers were subsistence farmers whose continuous debt precluded them from becoming landowners. In 1894, Robert Taylor bought 24 acres of rich White Rock Creek bottom land from Isabella and Franklin Winfrey (Winfrey Point). Interestingly, this was part of C.A. Lovejoy Survey #8, four miles east of the town of Dallas, originally surveyed by W.A. Ferris. R.F. Taylor paid $200 in cash and signed three promissory notes which were paid off by 1900. One of the 24 acres Taylor deeded to the trustees of Griggs Chapel, a Negro church which sat on the corner of his farm. Sam Street’s 1900 map of Dallas County shows R.T. Taylor’s house and two rental houses on Garland Road about where the Camp House is now located at the Dallas Botanical Gardens and Arboretum.

Perhaps because they had experienced the handicap of illiteracy, Robert and Savannah Taylor were keen on educating their four sons. It is not known what schools they attended in Georgia and Texas, but they must have had excellent teachers who prepared them for professional careers.

Polk K. Taylor (1867- ?), the oldest son, is mentioned in an 1891 Dallas Morning News article as a debater in the Dallas Colored Literary Society. It is not surprising that Polk became a lawyer, practicing law in the Creek Nation of Indian Territory where he married Freddie M. Sims in 1907. Polk moved about restlessly. He was a postal clerk in Muskogee and later a teacher in Oklahoma City. His mother Savannah, in 1909, reported Polk to be divorced and living in Chickasha. In the 1920’s, he was in Tulsa, perhaps witnessing the horror of the white mobs' attack on black businesses and persons in the spring of 1921. The year of Polk K. Taylor’s death and his place of burial are not known.

Second son Robert F. Taylor (1867-1901) finished school, met and married Olivia C. Anderson of Washington County, TX, and became a Baptist minister in Corsicana, TX around 1892. More will follow about Robert F.

An 1896 newspaper item reported: “Augustus Taylor of Dallas has returned from a medical college at Nashville, TN where he has been for 2 years.” A graduate of Meharry College, the only medical school for blacks, Augustus L. “Gustus” Taylor (1869-1941) became a prominent physician/surgeon in Fort Worth, opening his practice in 1907. He married three times - the last and longest marriage was to Allie Bell Cox (1894-1967), a divorcee with a daughter, Catherine M. Moore, who was adopted by Dr. Taylor. They lived in their home at 1132 Humboldt for 40 years. Dr. Taylor died in 1941; both he and his wife are buried in the New Trinity Cemetery in Haltom City, TX.

Walter R. Taylor (1872-1916), the youngest son, became a teacher at Dallas Colored High School on Cochran at Hall Street in Freedman’s Town (now the Uptown area). In 1898, he married Caledonia Dodson who taught at the same school. A Dallas City Directory shows their residence at 469 Juliet St. In 1899, his father sold Walter an acre of the White Rock land for ”$1 and other considerations”, but Walter did not move to the land. In 1909, Walter’s mother reported that Walter lived in El Paso, TX where he was principal of the colored high school. The census of 1910 shows Walter and Caledonia in Washington, D.C. where he was employed as a tabulator for the immigration service. Before Walter moved to California around 1911, he must have gone to law school. He was an attorney in Los Angeles until his death in 1916 (age 43). Walter is buried in the Angelus Rosedale Cemetery, Los Angeles, CA.

 None of the boys came back to Dallas until Robert F. was brought home to be buried in the Ferris Cemetery in 1901. His father, Robert T. Taylor, died five years later in 1906. The elder Taylor’s obituary which appeared in the Fort Worth paper says he was buried at “White Rock”. Probably Savannah buried her husband near her son in the Ferris Cemetery.

 An interesting affidavit was given in person by Savannah Taylor in 1907 at the time she was selling most of the Taylor farm to the City of Dallas for the building of White Rock Lake. She states that Robert T. Taylor left no will but all of his debts were paid in full. Savannah reports the marital status of each of her three living heirs and where they were living. She had no grandchildren.  In 1909, Savannah sold 20+ acres of the White Rock land to the city for $60 dollars an acre. She retained a few acres where her home was located and lived there until her death at age 72 in 1920. Savannah Taylor is buried in McCree Cemetery in Northeast Dallas.

 The story of Savannah and Robert T. Taylor is one of amazing success against the backdrop of Reconstruction and Jim Crow. Coming out of slave days in Georgia to own their own farm and home in Dallas, the black couple educated four boys who became professional men - a lawyer, a preacher, a physician, and a teacher.

Who was Robert F. Taylor?

Robert F. Taylor, the second son of R.T. and Savannah Taylor, was born in Georgia and, after the Civil War, moved with his parents and brothers to a farm on White Rock Creek. Little is known of where Robert received his education. He and his brother Walter were active in the BYPU, a Baptist youth organization, where Robert, dubbed “The Fighting Tiger”, honed  his speaking and argumentation skills. Robert F. married Olivia Anderson of Washington County, TX in 1891; he was 21 and she was 18. By 1892, he was a young preacher with his own church, the Second Independent Baptist Church of Corsicana TX. Taylor was the third pastor of this historic church, said to be the second oldest Negro Baptist church in Texas.

Taylor’s church was reorganized  as the First Independent Church of Corsicana - New Building - 1929

In 1892, young R.F. Taylor wrote an impressive letter to the Plaindealer, a Negro newspaper in Detroit. He sent news from the Lone Star State where, he reported, the dominant Democratic Party was divided and the Populist Party rising in popularity. Sadly, the Afro-American vote was also divided. Reminding the reader that 130,000 slaves were freed in the South in ignorance and superstition, Rev. Taylor wrote “we need more educated people”. He noted progress being made; “The leading churches in the South today are being filled with men who keep pace with the times”; but change takes time, he wrote. His thoughtful letter reveals Taylor’s interest in politics as well as religion. Rev. Taylor was active in the Navarro County Republican Party.

Corsicana in the 1890’s experienced rapid economic and social change; a small agricultural community became a boom town after oil was discovered in 1894. Saloons and brothels sprang up. The town was teeming with unruly men. Racial tensions were high. Several incidents of vigilantism and racial violence occurred in Corsicana between 1892 and 1901. Amid this climate of instability, Pastor Robert F. Taylor went about his business with the church; he attended numerous BPYU and Sunday School conventions in Central Texas where he often preached the sermon.

All was going along smoothly until December of 1897 when Taylor went to Corsicana authorities to ask for a restraining order against church member Nathan Mosely who was threatening his life. Why was Mosely threatening Taylor? The implication was that the preacher was having an affair with Mosely’s wife. The church tried to contain the scandal, saying “It is church business” and the church elders would discipline Taylor.

On May 23,1898, white druggist John Shook shot black citizen Nathan Mosely in broad daylight before many witnesses on a downtown street of Corsicana. A Galveston newspaper gave a vivid account of the incident. Shook said the black man sent his wife an insulting letter. He was not charged with the murder.

The June 14, 1898 Dallas Morning News story, reported that Rev. R.F. Taylor and Janie Mosely were arrested and indicted for conspiracy against Janie’s husband Nathan Mosely. Headlined “Echoes of the Mosely Killing”, a July 4th article revealed that a handwriting comparison showed Mosely did not write the letter which led to his murder. A similar letter had been sent to another unidentified woman. At this point the authorities turned their attention to Rev. Taylor, recalling that Taylor had asked for a restraining order on Nathan Mosely. The sheriff suspected Taylor and Janie Mosely had written the letters hoping that one of the two husbands would kill Nathan and end his threats. Druggist Shook obliged.

R.F. Taylor was also charged with misuse of the mails and taken by the Deputy Marshal to federal court in Dallas. After spending a few days in jail, Rev. Taylor was released. His church called for his resignation. We do not think Taylor was convicted of a crime or lost his church. A newspaper article in Oct. 1900 shows him as moderator for a church meeting in Corsicana where 200 people were in attendance;  apparently, R.F. Taylor continued his church duties until his death in 1901 at age 33. The cause of his death is not known. Olivia, his wife, took his body for burial in the Ferris Cemetery in Dallas near where he had grown up. She placed the epitaph,”Gone from our home but not from our hearts” on his impressive gravestone. It seems the young preacher was forgiven his indiscretions. 

By Susanne Starling, June 2022, based on research by Donald Payton, Debra Walker, and Marilyn Kosanke

A Freedman’s Community Near White Rock Creek?

 According to a hand drawn map by W.R. Conger, a portion of the Ferris Cemetery, toward San Leandro and Ash Creek, was the site of several black burials. Some of these black people worked for neighboring farmers like the Tuckers and the Caruths;  others lived in the Reinhardt  community and worked for the Santa Fe railroad. There was a colored school in Reinhardt and Griggs Chapel, a Negro church, sat on Garland Rd. adjacent to R.T. Taylor’s land.