Agnes Taylor | |
---|---|
Personal details | |
Born |
Westmoreland, England |
October 2, 1821
Died | December 12, 1911 Salt Lake City, Utah |
(aged 90)
Spouse(s) | John Rich Abraham Hoagland Wilhelm Schwartz |
Agnes Taylor Rich Hoagland Schwartz (October 2, 1821 – December 11, 1911) was a Mormon pioneer who played a key role in helping her brother, LDS Church president John Taylor, evade authorities during the federal crackdown on polygamy in the mid-1880s. She was also the mother-in-law of later church president Joseph F. Smith and of William W. Taylor, and a wife of Abraham Hoagland.
Taylor was born to James and Agnes Taylor in an English village called Hale in Westmorland. Her older brother, John, would later become president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In 1838, 17-year-old Taylor married John Rich in Carthage, Illinois. They eventually settled in Nauvoo and had four children before divorcing when Taylor wanted to go west with the main body of Latter Day Saints in the late 1840s.
In 1847, Taylor married 50-year-old Abraham Hoagland at age 26. They had five children together before divorcing in 1861 upon the recommendation of Brigham Young. Their daughter Sarah married Taylor's nephew, William Whitaker Taylor.
In 1862, Taylor was 41 when she married Wilhelm Schwartz, a 24-year-old Prussian immigrant. They had two children together, the second of whom, Mary Taylor Schwartz, married 43-year-old Joseph F. Smith in 1884 at the age of 18.
After Brigham Young died in 1877, Taylor's brother succeeded him as president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. John Taylor reluctantly moved into the Gardo House in 1882, three years after church members voted to make the then-uncompleted mansion the official parsonage for church presidents.