John Taylor (1752-1833)

John Taylor (1752–1833) was a pioneer Baptist preacher, religious writer, frontier historian and planter in north and central Kentucky. His two histories of early Baptist churches in Kentucky provide insight into the frontier society of the early decades of the 19th century. His 1820 pamphlet entitled "Thoughts on Missions" put him at the center of the controversy within frontier Baptist congregations about supporting mission societies. In buying and selling land on the frontier, Taylor acquired 2,000 acres (8.1 km²) and 20 African-American slaves by the end of the first decade of the 19th century, thus entering the planter class.

Taylor was born in 1752 in Fauquier County, Virginia to a farming family. He was taught at home to read, write and do his numbers. Although christened in the Church of England, he was strongly influenced by the preaching of the Baptist William Marshall, whom he first heard at age 17. Taylor united with the Baptists when he was 20 years old and began preaching on the frontier while living in Virginia.

In his History of Clear Creek Church: and Campbellism Exposed (1830), Taylor provided material about his origins:

At my birth, and in the early part of my life, my lot was cast in the backwoods of Virginia, where Indians often killed people, not far from where I was. My parents, who were of the church of England, told me, I had been christened when young. Being taught in all the rules of the old prayer book, I had my partialities that way; but we lived so frontier, I never heard any man preach, till about 17 years old; this was a baptist, (William Marshall). My awakening that day, was so striking, that I was won over to Marshall, and the religion he taught. A little more than two years after this, by the conviction I had from the New Testament, I was baptised [sic], and became a baptist from principle. To this way, and cause, I have had warm and decided attachments ever since. I would not be hard or unfriendly to other christian societies; but I am a decided, full bred baptist....

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