Excerpts from the Book of Life

William Franklin Taylor

The Road to Texas

In the book History of Leon County, Volume 1, Edith Taylor Gray provides the 'legend' of Doc Taylor. A summary of that includes certain details passed down from members of the family. The first known and verified historical record of Doc Taylor is a record of his marriage to Elizabeth Hunt in 1879, in Hill County, Texas.

This is a summary of what appears in that book.

Doc Taylor was born in 1855 (note a) somewhere in Tennessee (note b) on August 2, 1855. (note c.)
His father was a steamboat captain.
The names of both mother and father are unknown.
Doc Taylor spoke of a brother or half brother.
His father perished in a riverboat explosion when he was less than 12 years old.
Some time afterwards the mother remarried and the family lived in Forrest City, AR.
It is not known whether the brother was born to William's step father or if he was in the care of grandparents.
When he was 12 years old his mother died.
When the step father remarried he chose to work for a local pharmacist for room and board.
At age 16 a wagon train to Texas was being formed and he hired on to drive a wagon for a widow and her children.

What follows is suppositions and educated possibilities about the route that William Franklin Taylor took from Arkansas to Texas, circa 1878.

The closest historical trail to Forrest City is the Chickasaw trail which passes throuth Memphis, TN passing just north of Forest City, then to Little Rock, AR, where it joins the Southwest Trail. It is likely that a wagon train bound for Texas starting in Forest City would take this trail starting out.

The Southwest Trail enters Arkansas along County Road 166 at the Arkansas-Missouri state line, and passes through Little Rock, then follows Interstate 30 to Texarkana.

While we do not know if the wagon train's destination was Hill County, or if Doc Taylor left the wagon train before it's intended destination, we do know that Hill County is his first record of his being in Texas.

Assuming the wagon train's destination was Hill County it is unlikely that the wagon train proceeded beyond Washington Arkansas because the trails leaving Texarkana into Texas all went south to Nacogdoches. (note d.)

More reasonable was that the wagon train, if bound for Hill County, left the Southwest Trail at Washington, AR, and followed a known trail west to Fort Towson. Crossing the Red River at Fort Towson and into Red River County, Texas. From there he would have then followed the Texas Trail which leads into Dallas, then following Preston's Trail right into Hillssboro, Texas. A crossing further west than Fort Towson would mean crossing the Red River closer to the Oklahoma Indian territory, even though during this time period the US military was continuing to push the Indians further west and onto reservations.

The theory of crossing at Fort Towson into Red River County seems plausible due to the fact that following his marriage to Elizabeth in 1879 they moved to Titus county by June of 1880 where the census shows a 25 year old William with his 17 year old wife, Elizabeth. Titus county borders Red River County to the south. It's possible that having crossed at Red River County earlier he found the area desirable and returned to the area immediately following his marriage to Elizabeth.

Notes:

a. On his medical license and application to practice in Leon County, Doc Taylor writes his birth year as 1854.
b. On his medical license and application to practice in Leon County, Doc Taylor writes that he was born in Covington, Tennessee.
c. In the 1900 census the census taker shows that Doc Taylor and his parents were all born in Mississippi.
d. The El Camino Real trail passes through Nacogdoches the proceeds westerly through Houston and Leon Counties where a branch goes north crossing FM 831 at Buffalo Creek, then crosses Wheelock Creek 2 miles east of the Taylor Cemetery, north to Buffalo then turning again southwest on through Brazos County and on to San Marcos and San Antonio.

Wednesday, July 31, 2024