Henry Augustus Taylor 1839-1899

By Joseph B. Barnes, Esq.

 

Henry Augustus Taylor was born in New York (or Jersey City) in April 1839, the son  of a Scottish-Irish Military family heralding from County Tyrone, Ireland and Laura Peters Thomas (1815-1894) Descendant of Connecticut's Fairbanks  Family, some of whom arrived as early as 1633 and fought in King Phillips War, the Lexington Alarm and the Revolution, he could also trace lineage to early Dutch settlers at New Amsterdam (NYC).

 

His father, Henry Johns Taylor, had been prominent in politics, serving as mayor of Jersey City, and a state legislator in New Jersey. Henry declined to be involved in politics. Contemporaneous accounts from the 1890s indicated he was not involved in various social organizations either, though his estate paid a $40 claim for "dues" to the Ansantawae group (presumably the Milford Masonic Lodge). 

 

He worked in Insurance and became developer and part owner of several small railroad lines in the northeast and midwest. Railroading was the technology of the time and a huge money maker for the aggressive and shrewd investor. It was his interest in The Cincinnati, Hamilton and  Dayton Railway and Milford real estate that made up nearly all of his wealth at the end of his life. He maintained a home in New York at 47 w75th  Street but moved his official, residence to Milford.

 

Around 1889 after first leasing the property, he purchased (fellow 2012 Milford Hall of Fame inductee) Governor Charles Hobby Pond's estate at 200 High Street in Milford, a High Victorian Gothic mansion built circa 1864. He renamed the estate "Laurelton Hall"  for his mother Laura Peters Thomas Taylor and his little daughter Laura Peters Taylor who died in May of 1888 ca. age 5. It continues to this day as the Academy of our Lady of Mercy - Laurelton Hall, a Catholic girls college preparatory school founded in 1905. Laurelton Hall is on the National Register of Historic places.

 

New York in the gilded age of the 1890's was rife with millionaires. One pundit of the time said that anyone with "just five Millions was merely comfortably poor." Taylor, with approximately one tenth that sum was a small fish in the City. The Irony of buying

the Pond estate was that he became a very Big Fish in the small pond that was turn of the century Milford. In addition to Laurelton Hall and its 23 acres he owned seven cottages on the streets surrounding the estate, a 23 acre farm, another farm of 15 acres and nine or more acres of other Milford land then valued at $60.00 per acre.

 

His estate showed two cottages on Burns Point (Fort Trumbull). One of these "Cottages" was itself a spectacular mansion and the largest and most elaborate Shingle Style Home in Milford. Taylor was not merely looking for a summer home to get away from the heat of downtown, just a mile to the north. He had a plan to build a series of mansions along the shore to rival the summer resort community of Newport, Rhode Island. He failed. His business associates had no interest in developing the shoreline property. Taylor's own "summer home," was the sole product of his ill-fated scheme. The grand mansion still stands, with additional construction in the 1980's, as a multiple unit condominium at  his 6 Seaside Avenue address.

 

In 1892-3  his children, Henry Augusts Taylor, Jr., John Howard Taylor and daughters Margharita and Mary Elizabeth, funded the Mary Taylor Methodist Episcopal Church (South Broad Street, Late Gothic Revival) as a memorial of their mother, Henry's first wife, Mary Anna Meyer Taylor. Henry undoubtedly contributed as well though his estate showed a mortgage asset from the Mary Taylor Church to him valued at $1,500, so not all of what he personally contributed (if any) was a gift.

 

In 1893 Taylor offered to donate a second Milford Landmark, the Taylor Library. The Town would furnish the land and the building's yearly maintenance costs. Since there is virtually no mention of the design or construction of the library in the minutes of the Library Board for the years 1893-5, it seems likely that Taylor had the building completed before turning it over to the city. In 1976 the library moved to its current location on New Haven Avenue having outgrown the structure. It still stands and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Its design by Bridgeport architect Joseph W. Northrop was inspired by the H.H. Richardson's Romanesque style ("Richardsonian"). Crane Library in Quincy, MA had great influence on Library construction throughout the Northeast. More blocky and simple than its inspiration, Northrop's style emphasized the front arch and over scale masonry with contrasting colors to achieve its landmark status. The 1895 finished cost of the building was $25,000 and boasted gas lamps, a massive fireplace, book alcoves furnished by some of Milford's grandest families, Tiffany glass windows and shelves named for historic luminaries of Milford's past.

 

After he died on April 8, 1899, just days after his 60th birthday,  interesting and even salacious claims arose.  His will left $20,000 to his housekeeper, Louise Catherine DeVernay.  A tidy sum in 1899 which, using Gold as a common valuation, would be equal to $1.6 Million today. Ms. DeVernay was apparently not satisfied. Claiming to be Taylor's third wife (presumably at common Law)  she sued on behalf of herself and her son, who, she claimed, was also his son: "Columbus Taylor." As wife she would have been entitled to dower rights of roughly a third of the whole estate. After four years, the estate settled for the original twenty thousand due under the will and "interest" of six thousand more. She obviously did not prevail in her claim in the days long before DNA.

 

Another woman in Henry's life was also disclosed in the estate process. Melatina de Chropovitsky was claimed by the estate to owe the then kingly sum of just under $16,000 by note and claims. The estate instead paid her $2,851.70, without explanation. His daughter Margharita had married the Russian Count Nicholas de Chropovitsy and this may be the source of the financial relationship. The Count died at Port Arthur in 1905 during Russia's war with Japan. Their daughter, Taylor's Grandchild, Maya, born 1899, would marry Hugh Auchincloss of Newport and Washington.

 

Potentially most damaging to the gentleman's reputation was a federal court suit by the Dayton Railway that he had hypothecated (stolen) close to half a million dollars in bonds of various railway companies that were in fact owned by the Dayton. As reported in the  New York Times article of the time, the Dayton Railway company essentially admitted its own fraud by placing the "bonds" in Taylor's name in order to avoid their potential loss to other claimants who were suing the railroad. By inventory the bulk of Mr. Taylor's estate was in Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railway common and preferred stock (no bonds were shown in the estate accounts), roughly half of which was  held under the name of his attorney, Henry F. Shoemaker. The matter never went to judgment but the stock was sold at private sale for $700,000.  Taylor's share was 5/16th of the total and about what the estate claimed the value of his interest to be prior to the suit. The published Dayton claim that Taylor had "no interest" in the assets appears untrue. From the records available, there is no reason to believe that he had in fact done anything other than what they had agreed to do under the lax business rules of the time.

 

He survived two wives Mary Anna Meyer, ca. 1844-1878, with whom he sired seven children: Christopher Taylor who died in infancy in 1866,  John Henry Taylor who also died in infancy in 1869 John Howard Taylor 1870-1926,  Margharita Taylor 1872-1942, Mary Elizabeth Taylor 1874-Unk, Henry Augustus Taylor, Jr. 1876-1955 and Laurance Taylor who died in infancy in 1878, and, after her death, married Elizabeth "Lizzy" Prudence Conrey of New York City (1859- Unk.) with whom he had five children. Laura Peters Taylor b. ca 1883 d. 22 May 1888, Washington E. Taylor 1884-1898, Henrietta Augusta Taylor nov 1885- unk., Eleanor Van Vredenburgh Taylor Mar 1885-1925, and Bayard Taylor 1889-unk

 

His munificence must likely have been affected and inspired by the losses of a wife and many children as just seven of the twelve survived to adulthood. With his wealth came much loss and a relatively short life during which he did much good.