1925 Biography - Benjamin B. Taylor

Benjamin Brown Taylor. An active member of the Baton Rouge bar for eighteen years, Benjamin Brown Taylor has busied himself with many important responsibilities both in his profession and the field of business. He was a volunteer for World war service.

He was born in East Feliciana Parish, near Jackson, March 20, 1885. This branch of the Taylor family came from England to Virginia in Colonial times. His grandfather, J. Warren Taylor, born in Virginia in 1816, as a young man settled in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, where he married and for many years conducted an extensive business as a planter. He died there in 1903. His wife was Mary Pipes, a native of Feliciana Parish, who was born in 1828 and died in 1901. Their son, David H. Taylor, Sr. was born in East Feliciana Parish in 1856, was reared and married there, obtained his education in Centenary College at Jackson, and made his home in and around Jackson until 1910. As a merchant he was for many years a member of the firm of W. R. McKowen & Company. Since 1910 his home has been at Hammond, Louisiana, and he retired from merchandising there in 1922. He is a democrat and for a number of years was president of the police jury of East Feliciana Parish. He is a deacon in the Presbyterian Church. His wife, Callie Brown, was born in East Feliciana Parish in 1860. They had a family of six children: Miss Mary Hill, a teacher in the Hammond public schools; Benjamin Brown Taylor and David H. Taylor, Jr., both of Baton Rouge; Lulie, wife of Henry McKowen, a dentist and anesthetist at Baton Rouge; Camille, the youngest child, wife of J. Blackman Nabors, a business man of Mansfield, Louisiana; Lewis Norman Taylor, fifth in the family of children, now city salesman for the Louis Levy Grocery Company at Baton Rouge, is a veteran of the World war, having attended the First Officers' Training School at Fort Roots, Arkansas, was commissioned a second lieutenant in the field artillery and later promoted to first lieutenant and served in various camps of the United States until the close of the war.

Benjamin Brown Taylor acquired his early education in private schools at Jackson, and graduated from Centenary College with the class of 1904, taking the degree Bachelor of Science. He is a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. After leaving college he was connected with the Whiteman-Decker Lumber Company at Caro, Texas, for a year. He then entered the law department of Tulane University at New Orleans, graduating with the degree LL. B. in 1906, and spent another year and a half in the law school of the University of Michigan, which gave him a similar degree in 1907. Admitted to the Louisiana bar in 1906, on September 18, 1907, he engaged in private practice at Baton Rouge. As an attorney he has devoted himself to a general civil law practice. He is a member of the firm of Taylor & Porter, which firm has offices in the Louisiana National Bank Building. Mr. Porter, his partner, is represented elsewhere in this publication. From 1908 to 1918. Mr. Taylor served as United States referee in bankruptcy.

He is vice president of the Louisiana National Bank and the Louisiana Trust and Savings Bank, both of Baton Rouge, and is vice president of the Capitol Building and Loan Association. He is secretary and treasurer of the Mayola Realty Company, Inc., at Baton Rouge. Mr. Taylor is a democrat in Politics, is chairman of the Board of Deacons of the First Presbyterian Church, is a member of St. James Lodge No. 47, F. and A. M., and Capitol Lodge, Knights of Pythias. He belongs to the Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce, the Baton Rouge Golf and Country Club, the Baton Rouge Parish Bar Association, the Louisiana State and the American Bar Association. He is president of the Baton Rouge Y. M. C. A.

August, 1918, he volunteered for the service in World war, entering the Field Artillery Officers' Training School at Camp Zachary Taylor, Kentucky, where he was in training as a field artillery officer until after the armistice was signed.

Mr. Taylor, at Jackson Louisiana, June 10, 1910 married Miss May McKowen, daughter of William R. and Sallie (Pipes) McKowen, the latter now a resident of Baton Rouge. Her father died at Jackson in 1911, having spent his career as a merchant and planter. Mrs. Taylor is a graduate of the Agnes Scott College of Decatur, Georgia, taking the degrees Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor have four children: Benjamin Brown Jr., May McKowen, Jane Shannon and John McKowen. B. B., Taylor, Jr., is a student in the Junior High School of Baton Rouge, and May is in the grammar school.

David Humphrey Taylor, Jr., younger brother of Benjamin Taylor, was born at Jackson, Louisiana, June 13, 1888, was educated in private schools, completed his junior year in Centenary College, and since leaving college in 1904 has had a progressive business career. For some years he was with the W. R. McKowen & Company at Jackson, and in 1908 removed to Baton Rouge, and for nine years was on the road as a traveling salesman for Holmes & Barnes, Ltd., wholesale grocers. In 1917 he took a similar position with the Cohn Flour & Feed Company of Baton Rouge, at the same time acquiring financial interests and becoming vice president of the company. Since January, 1923, he has been secretary and treasurer and assistant manager of this wholesale grocery house. David H. Taylor, Jr., married Miss Ellen Connell, June 13, 1907. She is a daughter of Robert S. and Mary (Cage) Connell, her father a planter in West Feliciana Parish. The three children born to their marriage are: Robert Connell, Shirley Stewart and J. Warren.

Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from A History of Louisiana, by Henry E. Chambers, published in 1925, volume 2, pages 252-253.