George Plater Tayloe
| George Plater Tayloe | |
|---|---|
George Plater Tayloe
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| Born |
October 15, 1804 Mount Airy, Richmond County, Virginia |
| Died | April 18, 1897 (aged 92) Buena Vista (Roanoke, Virginia) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Planter, military officer |
George Plater Tayloe ( October 15, 1804 – Apr 18, 1897) was a Virginia businessman, soldier and legislator who also served as one of the original trustees of Hollins University.
George Tayloe was born October 15, 1804, at Mount Airy in Richmond County, Virginia, the ninth of fifteen children of Hon. John Tayloe III. He was born into a large aristocratic family of great wealth that had accumulated over three generations, beginning with John Tayloe I, son of the immigrant, one of the richest plantation owners and businessmen in Virginia for his generation. Considered to be the chief architect of the family fortune, he was known as the "Hon. Colonel of the Old House". The Tayloe family of Richmond County, including John Tayloe I, his son, John Tayloe II, and grandson, John Tayloe III, exemplified gentry entrepreneurship.[3]
George Tayloe attended Princeton University. Following his graduation he moved to the western part of the state to manage a source of the family income-two iron furnaces, Catawba II and Cloverdale. These furnaces along with 1132 acres of land around Cloverdale had been purchased by the Tayloes from a Thomas Madison in 1817. George Tayloe married Mary Elizabeth Langhorne in 1830, and in 1833 he traded with his father-in-law, Colonel William Langhorne, a section of the Cloverdale property for the 598-acre Buena Vista tract.
This tract or plantation originally was known as "Roanoke" after the river which flowed at the edge of the land, but the name was changed to "Buena Vista" in 1838 when a section of lower Botetourt County became Roanoke County. Tayloe razed the Langhorne house and erected the present Greek Revival dwelling on the plantation's most commanding site. The construction date for Tayloe's house traditionally is given as 1833, the year he acquired the land, but architectural evidence indicates it is closer to 1840. In any case, the 10,783-square-foot mansion would have taken several years to build. "Buena Vista" was built of red brick said to be imported from England; the walls of the house are 18 inches thick. It barely escaped burning at the hands of General David Hunter at the time of the burning of Virginia Military Institute, but was saved from destruction by a report that General Jubal Early and his staff were there.
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