Biography of Caleb P. Taylor

Caleb P. Taylor, born April 25, 1855, in Grant County, Wisconsin, is a prominent farmer and livestock grower in Davidson County, South Dakota. Son of C. and Nancy (Coombs) Taylor, he began farming independently at age twenty-two on a 320-acre farm in Wisconsin. In 1900, he moved to South Dakota, purchasing a 240-acre farm in Badger Township. Taylor has achieved success in agriculture and livestock raising. A staunch Republican, he is active in community affairs and a member of the Congregational Church. He married Izella Shanley on January 18, 1876, and they have four children: Florence, Halbert, Grace, and Clyde.


Caleb P. Taylor, one of the representative farmers and stock growers of Davison County, is a native of the state of Wisconsin, having been born in Grant County on the 25th of April, 1855, and being a son of C. and Nancy (Coombs) Taylor, of whose fourteen children eleven are living at the time of this writing. The educational advantages afforded the subject in his youth were limited, being confined to a somewhat irregular attendance in the district schools of a pioneer section of the Badger state. He continued to assist in the work and management of the homestead farm until he had attained the age of twenty-two years, when he purchased a farm of three hundred and twenty acres in Grant County, Wisconsin, and began operations on his own responsibility. He has never wavered in his allegiance to the great fundamental industry of agriculture, which he has found worthy of his best efforts and through which he has attained definite success and independence. He continued to reside in his native state until the spring of 1900, when he came to South Dakota and purchased a farm of two hundred and forty acres in Badger Township, Davison County, the place being well improved and one of the valuable rural estates of this section. He paid eighteen dollars an acre for the land, and its market value at the present time is forty dollars an acre. In addition to carrying on diversified agriculture, Mr. Taylor is also prominently and successfully engaged in the raising of livestock of excellent grades. He is a staunch Republican in politics, is progressive and public-spirited, and has gained the confidence and goodwill of the community in which he resides. He and his wife are members of the Congregational Church.

On the 18th of January, 1876, Mr. Taylor was united in marriage to Miss Izella Shanley, who was born in Grant County, Wisconsin, being a daughter of Thomas Shanley. Of this union have been born four children, namely: Florence, Halbert, Grace, and Clyde.


Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.


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