Rev. John Taylor was born in County Armagh, Northern Ireland in 1754. It is not known when he came to the United States. He married Susanna Woodruff, the widow of William Huston, a Revolutionary officer.
Rev. Taylor was originally a member of the Presbyterian Church and in the United States became a convert to Episcopalianism. He was ordained a deacon on October 12, 1794 by Bishop White. Rev. Taylor journeyed West to Washington County, Pennsylvania in the vicinity of King's Creek around 1800 and established a church and school.
Rev. Taylor left Washington County, Pennsylvania in 1800 and went to live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to answer a call to service at Trinity Episcopal Church. Rev. Taylor's school work was largely at the Pittsburgh Academy which was the first institution of higher learning in the village. In October 1801, Rev. Taylor opened a night school on his own account in some of the rooms of the Pittsburgh Academy. On January 10, 1803, he separated from the Academy and began conducting a school in his residence at the corner of Market Street and Fifth Avenue. In 1807, he was again teaching at the Pittsburgh Academy.
Rev. Taylor left his charge at Trinity Episcopal Church in 1818, but continued to baptize, marry, and bury people in Pittsburgh and its vicinity for many years afterward. He continued this work until 1829 when he was seventy-five years of age. The continued call for his services was perhaps due to the fact that he had no immediate successor at Trinity Church. From 1818 to 1824, Trinity Church sometimes had a rector, but often times had none. He had also endeared himself to many both in the Church and out of it, who went to him whenever a clergyman was required.
Rev. Taylor was an avid astronomer and had more than a local reputation. It is related that he loved the study of astronomy so well that he sometimes spent the entire night in observing the movement of the heavenly bodies. One of his sources of income was to furnish astronomical calculations first for Zadok Cramer's Almanacs, and later for the Western Farmer's Almanacs. The last almanac for which he furnished calculations was the Western Farmer's Almanac for 1839 which appeared after his death.
Following his wife's death in January 1829, Rev. Taylor made his home with his son-in-law, Mr. John Irwin, in Allegheny , and passed the summers with his step-daughter, Sally Huston, who had married Mr. Thomas Limber, and lived with her husband on the banks of the Little Shenango Creek, three miles east of Greenville, Pennsylvania.
Rev. Taylor died on August 10, 1838, at the age of eighty-three years, nine months at the home of Mr. Limber. His death was tragic. For some years before, at daily worship, he had prayed that his death might be sudden, "so that his body might not be racked with pain nor scorched with fever." He was on one of his usual summer visits. The hot August air had been charged with electricity. Then the storm burst, the thunder roared and the lightening flashed, and at midnight Mr. Limber's house was struck, and its victim was Rev. Taylor. His prayer was answered.
He lay at rest, only a few yards from where he met his death, in the small burial plot on the Hadly Road, in a corner of the farm where he died.
Obituary information obtained from:
Rev. John Taylor - The First Rector of Trinity Episcopal Church of Pittsburgh and His Commonplace Book by Charles W. Dahlinger
Published in Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine by the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania ~ Volume 1, Number 1 - January 1918
