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REV. C. E. TAYLOR, whose portrait appears herein, was born in what was then Orwell, but now Rome, Bradford, County, Pa., August 11th, 1818. His parents had moved from New England about two years previous, bringing four children with them, he being the first child born in their wilderness home, which has since been and still is known as "Taylor Hill." Though his early opportunities for obtaining an education were very small, yet he made the most of those which he did enjoy. While at work on the farm, with his team, he had his book with him, and the spare moments were pressed into the best possible service. He became greatly interested in astronomy, and there is not an hour in the night that has not witnessed him out, searching for some star, nebula or constellation. His thirst for knowledge became the ruling passion of his life. After availing himself of the advantages of the district school, and attending the seminary at Cazenovia, he commenced teaching a district school in January, 1837, at eleven dollars per month and "boarded around."
When he was about fourteen years old, while milking in his father's barnyard, a chain of lightning struck a tree a few rods distant, knocking him down, and making him unconscious for some length of time. When consciousness returned he was about fifty feet from where his pail was into which he had been milking, and where his hat had fallen when he fell into the mud, as his clothes were muddy. The cow had also fallen as was indicated by her muddy knees. After a very short time he resumed his milking and suffered nothing in particular at what might have been a fatal Providence. Twice at a later period he came very near being drowned, once in the Susquehanna river and once in the Tunkhannock creek.
He was powerfully converted September 8th, 1839, at a camp-meeting held at Pond Hill, Pa., and from that period the whole current of his life was changed. He felt that God had called him to the work of the Christian ministry and he devoted all of his energies and time to prepare himself for that important work. He held meetings as opportunities presented, and many sinners were converted from the error of their ways. He was soon licensed to exhort according to the custom of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and subsequently to preach. August 11th, 1842, the day he was twenty-four years old, he joined the Oneida Annual Conference as a traveling preacher, on trial, at its session held in Oxford, Chenango county, N. Y. His fields of labor for many years were confined to the northern part of Pennsylvania. In 1869 he was appointed to Whitney's Point, where he has since resided, though he preached two years at Chenango Forks. He is now what is called an emeritus or superannuate. He has given considerable time to writing church, and other history. His principal work, however, has been his Annals of the Old State of Lisle, from which large extracts have been made in the compiling of this work. He assisted Rev. David Craft in getting up the history of Bradford county, Pa., published a few years since.
He was joined in marriage July 9th, 1845, with Miss Emeline Warner, of Pike, Pa., a woman of deep piety and great amiability, rendering her very useful as a minister's wife. She died October 5th, 1884. He has but one child living, Dr. A. F. Taylor, now practicing at Castle Creek, N. Y. As a minister the elder has been very successful. Many large and extensive revivals have transpired under his labors, and he has received many hundred into the church. But his natural force is being abated, his eye is becoming dim, but having a consciousness that he has not lived in vain, and that he has tried to make the world better for his having lived in it, he is tranquilly looking forward to that better country where the afflictions of the present life shall never be known.
