Portrait and Biographical Record ~ Pages 246
Kindly submitted: Bill Schmitz
ZACHARY TAYLOR, of Easton, is a member of the firm of Z.
Taylor & Son, who carry on a large furniture and upholstering
business and are the leading undertakers in the city. Mr. Taylor
is a thorough master of the upholstering business, and has given
his attention to this work for over twenty years. It is now
about ten years since he removed his office and storerooms to
No. 524 Northampton Street, and the financial ability he has
exercised has been rewarded with prosperity.
John Taylor, the paternal grandfather of our subject, came to
the United States from England. He was a school teacher by
profession and had followed that vocation prior to leaving his
native land. His wife, a native of Germany, was in her girlhood
Miss Mary Derr. Her parents, on coming from the Fatherland,
where they had resided near Heidelberg, were residents of Saucon
Township, Northampton County. Jacob, Alexander and George, the
three eldest sons of John and Mary Taylor, went to Ohio in 1853.
Their other children were Samuel, John, and Elizabeth, who
became the wife of Emanuel Thume. The father of this family, who
was a man of fine educational attainments, died when in his
seventy-first year.
John, the father of Zachary Taylor, was born in Bethlehem
Township, Northampton County. For about a quarter of a century
he worked on a canal and became quite well-to-do. He was a Whig,
and in religion was a member of the Reformed Church. His wife
was before her marriage Mary Stametz. Their family numbered
twelve children: Sabina, Mrs. Samuel Waltman; Mrs. Lucie Kidd;
Malinda, Mrs.Jones; John, Salomi, Zachary, Mary, Emma;
Elizabeth, whose death resulted from an accident in her eighth
year; and Cornelius, Samuel Henry and Polly, all of whom died in
infancy. The father died in 1874, aged sixty-eight years, while
his wife, whose death occurred September 3, 1886, had attained
the age of seventy-six years, eleven months and four days.
Our subject was born October 10, 1847, in Easton, and until he
was about thirteen years old he pursued his studies in the
public schools of South Easton. For the next seven years he
worked as a tow boy on a canal. In 1862 he became a clerk in a
grocery at South Easton, but for two years prior to this had
been employed in Steward's Iron Mill, of the same place. The
youth next took up the trade of upholstering, and was the first
to complete an apprenticeship at this business in Easton. In
1872 he formed a partnership with William Fulmer, under the firm
name of Taylor & Fulmer, and thus they continued to do business
until the spring of the following year, when Amos Davis was
admitted as a partner. The new firm of Taylor, Fulmer & Co.,
operated only until the fall of 1873, when Mr. Fulmer withdrew
and located on Fourth Street. The old firm name was then changed
to Davis & Taylor, and the business continued until 1878 at No.
446 Northampton Street. Mr. Davis then withdrew from the
partnership and Mr. Taylor succeeded to the entire business,
which he carried on alone for about two
Source: Portrait and
Biographical Record of Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon Counties,
Pennsylvania. Containing Biographical Sketches of Prominent and
Representative Citizens of the Counties, Together with
Biographies and Portraits of all the Presidents of the United
States. Chicago, Chapman Publishing Co., 1894; |