TAYLOR, Charles O. (1817-1905) and (first wife) Matilda W. (c. 1824-1880) and (second wife) Mary Jane (1838-1913)

C. O. Taylor, a minister from New York State, is most remembered for his pioneer evangelism in the southeastern United States. Both he and his brother, Daniel T. Taylor, participated in the Millerite movement and subsequently became clergymen in different branches of Adventism, with Daniel Taylor becoming an Advent Christian preacher and writer. Charles Taylor started to keep the Sabbath in 1852 and was ordained as a minister in 1857. After serving many years in New York, in 1876 Charles and Matilda Taylor embarked on several years of itinerant and pioneering evangelism in Georgia, the Carolinas, Alabama, and Mississippi. Records indicate that Charles Taylor addressed some Black audiences, although most of his meetings were with Southern Whites.1EGWLM 896.3

Ellen White appreciated Charles Taylor's good qualities (“Brother Taylor's spirit is precious in the sight of the Lord”), but she also conveyed messages of reproof on occasion. In 1868 she censured him for being “selfish in regard to means” to the point that he had exploited his domestic hired help. Perhaps most interesting is an 1872 testimony addressed to Taylor and several other ministers in New York in which they were upbraided for going “over and over the same ground among the churches” and were urged instead “to go out in new fields and labor to bring souls into the truth.” There may be a connection between this testimony and the Taylors’ bold venture four years later to leave their native New York and become the first denominational workers to enter Georgia, and be among the first to work in other states in the Southeast.1EGWLM 896.4

See: Obituary: “Chas. O. Taylor,” Review, Sept. 7, 1905, pp. 19, 20; obituary: “M. W. Taylor,” Review, Nov. 4, 1880, p. 302; obituary: “Mary Jane Haskell Taylor,” Review, Sept. 4, 1913, p. 862; SDAE, s.v. “South Atlantic Conference,” “Charles O. Taylor,” “Daniel T. Taylor”; search term “C. O. Taylor” in Review and Herald online collection, www.adventistarchives.org; Ellen G. White, Lt 31, 1861 (c. 1861); Lt 16, 1868 (June 20); Testimony to the Church (1872) (PH159), pp. 63, 64.1EGWLM 896.5