THE TAYLOR FAMILY OF DENTISTS
by EDWARD C. MILLS, D.D.S., F.A.C.D.
Of the many families of America which
have made outstand-
ing permanent contributions to science
and to the professions,
Ohio may claim one which has made a
special contribution to the
field of dentistry--the Taylor family.
The progenitor of this family, William
Taylor, a Revolu-
tionary soldier of Monmouth County, New
Jersey, was born
December 27, 1744. His forbears, of
English extraction, had
settled in New Jersey in the seventeenth
century. In the last
decade of the eighteenth century,
William Taylor and his wife
Lucy Imlay moved west, settling first in
Kentucky and finally
near the present site of Bainbridge,
Ohio, around 1800. Here
he lived for the next thirty years; he
died in 1830.
The eldest son of William and Lucy
Taylor was Joseph, born
in New Jersey in 1770. He moved to
Kentucky with his parents
and there married Jane Irwin in 1797.
Joseph and his wife
moved to Ohio with the elder Taylors.
Among the nine children
of Joseph were four sons who became
dentists: Joseph (1806-73),
James (1809-81), Edward (1811-68), and
Irwin (1813-43). One
grandson and two great grandsons of the
elder Joseph Taylor also
chose the dental profession for their
life's work. They were
James Irwin Taylor (1842-1916) of
Cincinnati; his son Henry
C. Taylor (1871-1946) of Toledo; and
James Silcott (born 1865)
of Washington C. H. Among these dentist
members of the
Taylor family, James was the first to
enter the profession and
perhaps became the best known.
JAMES TAYLOR, as a teacher and as a
founder of the Ohio Col-
lege of Dental Surgery, effectively
contributed to the advance of
dentistry from a craft to a profession.
Born near Bainbridge in
1809, he received the advantages of a
good education from his
father, who served the community as
judge and school commis-
sioner. At an early age James chose
medicine as his occupation
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