Meet our Relatives - Taylor Branch
John Taylor
Revised: December 11, 2011
Born 1812 Died 1884
son of Richard Taylor, born 02 May 1787 in Bristol, Somerset, England.
John's younger brother was the infamous William Stuart Taylor
Roy's Great Great Grandfather
John Taylor was much more famous than his brother William. [2]
Taylor, John was eighteen years older than his brother, William Stuart Taylor and was brought up in Barbados, in the West Indies, where his parents looked after a plantation. He received a good education, and went to Oxford College in England. He had been studying for the ministry when he and his younger brother left the West Indies and came to Canada-settling at Kingston, Ont., He did missionary work for the British Bible Society-travelling among the wood cutters scattered through Northern Ontario. He came to Kinmount around 1875 and there met and took a liking to the Icelanders. From hereon played a big role in helping them get to Nyja Island(Gimli). John Taylor was a very kind man. He was much impressed by their sincerity and honesty-these fine people who were situated in such a barren place. With the completion of the railway there would be no means of livelihood, and winter upon them. He had a friend in the government who introduced him to Lord Dufferin-the Governor-General of Canada. Lord Dufferin, who had travelled in Iceland was greatly interested, and as a result of this conference, money was provided to help this little colony through the rugged winter, and provision was made for a scouting party to go west in search of a more suitable location for the settlement.
John and his wife Elizabeth had no children of their owns but adopted a girl (Rosa Banks). They also took the children of William Taylor to their home for a time after they lost their mother. The five girls describe their Aunt Elizabeth as a very kind person and a fine housekeeper, and were very happy in their well ordered home-a large comfortable log house.
When he came to Kinmount in 1875 and first met these Icelanders, he became a very good friend of Sigtriggur Jonasson who had come the year before, and it was he who had met this group of immigrants in Quebec in the fall of 1874 for the Ontario government, who provided the men with work on the railroad. The first John Taylor did for them was to demand of the railway company more and better living quarters which was granted. The following June 1875 John went to Ottawa to negotiate with the government to supply fares for three men from the group of Icelanders in Kinmount to travel west to the Red River valley.
Page -2-
This was granted with the stipulation that John Taylor be foreman of this trip. The Icelanders picked Sigtryggur Jonasson, Einar Jonasson and Skafti Arason to go. Immediately these men set out for the west, and along the way met up with Kristjan Jonasson and Sigurdur Ohristopherson. They all arrived in Winnipeg on July 16, 1875. They chose Nyja Island(Gimli, Arnes area)and quickly went back to report to the government and the Icelanders in Kinmount. Once again John Taylor and Sigtryggur Jonasson went to Ottawa to seek more help to get to Gimli. After their talk with Lord Dufferin, enough money was granted to finance the trip to Gimli, and for provisions for winter supplies as winter was now upon them. With some of the money they bought food and shoes and clothing, and the group left Kinmount on the 21 of September, 1875. It is said that there were about two hundred and fifty all told in this one group, and along the way, many other Icelanders joined them from other parts of Ontario and the United States-so by the time they arrived in Winnipeg, they totaled around three hundred people. The government appointed John Taylor to be “Umbodsman" over the Icelandic group and Fridjon Frederickson was his right hand man as interpreter etc.
They arrived in Winnipeg on Monday, October 11, 1875 from the south by steamboat on the Red River, from Fisher's Landing in Minnesota. The news had reached Winnipeg that this group of Icelanders were expected to arrive, and a large number of inquisitive Winnipeggers had gathered at the river to have a look at these people, as they had never seen Icelanders before. Many pushed their way on the boat and enquired, "Where are the Icelanders? Show us the Icelanders". John Taylor pointed to the group on the boat and said; "These are the Icelanders,-there, you can see them". But nobody believed them to "be Icelanderss They expected to see people who were different, and said; "We know that Icelanders are very short, about four feet in height, and very thick and stocky-built with coal black hair, long and very much like Eskimos. These are no Icelanders. These men are white."
This rather amused old John Taylor, and he answered them; "They are the people I met in Ontario. They had recently arrived from Iceland. They are genuine Icelanders, and I have brought them here.”
But of course, use your own judgement and believe what you like." So this was the way they were greeted when they first landed in Winnipeg.
They spent a few days in Winnipeg while they were getting or buying the most necessary supplies to get them through the winter and for their trip on to Gimli. They started off to the north on Sunday, October 17th. and arrived at Gimli on the 21st of October, 1875. After one day's rest they started cutting trees and immediately started building log homes. While this work went on, they lived on the flatboats and in tents,
Shortly after their arrival winter set in with much ice and snow. This interrupted the building of the log homes, and caused much hardship, as people had to bunch up into the few homes already constructed.
This group of Icelanders spent the winter of 1875-76 at Gimli in these few log cabins, and suffered greatly through sickness and malnutrition. As a result, many of them died.
[1] (Translated from "Almanak" - 1926 - Page.26.)
[2] Roy Einar Christopherson
John Taylor
Photo: MHS
[To Do: Insert map of Bristol Eng]
John's father, Richard was born in
Bristol, England (View Census)
Map of Barbados, showing ST. Michael's Parish and Taylor Plantations on a Herman Moll 1736 Map. Bridgetown is down at bottom.
Richard Taylor, John's father was born 1787, so this confirms someone named Taylor was there before. Possibly his father?
View more on Barbados here
Taylor Lake in Manitoba, Canada
Also there is a Taylor Hill named after them.
John Taylor's Routes 1812 - 1884
Individual Summary:
Male
Father: Richard Taylor
Mother: Elizabeth Mehetabel Jones
John Taylor
Sex:
Individual Report for John Taylor
Individual Facts:
Birth: 1812 in St Michaels Parrish, Barbados
Emigration: 1848 in Kingston. Ontario, Canada; with his brother William
Occupation: 1865; British-American Bible Society
Occupation: 1880; as Icelandic agent
Death: 17 Aug 1884 in Milwaukee,Wisconsin
Education: Halifax
Shared Facts: Elizabeth Mary HAINES
Marriage: Abt. 1850 in near Kingston
Children: Rose TAYLOR
Notes:
Person Notes: Life at
Kinmount was hard but was made lighter
by John Taylor who lived nearby as representative
of the Shantymen's Union sponsored
by the British and Foreign Bible
Society. He told Jonasson that the federal
government was offering free land in
Keewatin, the
Source
HTML
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:qIA9LEyIEDQJ:https://tspace.library.
utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/17601/1/Iceland.pdf+%22Senator+G.S.+Thorval
dson%22+and+winnipeg&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
PDF
https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/17601/1/Iceland.pdf
John Taylor (1812-1884)
Missionary, immigration agent.
Born in the Barbados in 1812, the son of a commissariat officer of the British government, and educated in Halifax and Oxford. He was married in 1850.
He joined the British-American Bible Society in 1865 and worked among lumberjacks near Peterborough.
He visited the Icelandic colonists at Kinmount, Ontario in 1874, and was instrumental in securing a Dominion government grant for an expedition to choose a site for the colony in the West. He also conducted thegroup to Gimli, and in 1876 waselected a member of the first village council of Gimli. He remained asIcelandic agent there until 1880, whenhe moved to another colony at Argyle. His last years were spent in Carberry. Taylor died on 17 August 1884 at Milwaukee,Wisconsin.
Source:
Page 1 of 4 Friday, March 04, 2011 3:48:42 PM
Source:
Pioneers and Early Citizens of Manitoba
This collection of biographies of early Manitobans was compiled by the Manitoba Library Association, and published in 1971. Those included in the collection lived prior to 1920, and came from all walks of life: politics, professions, business and finance, armed services, arts, pioneers, and others. © 1971, Manitoba Library Association,
ISBN 0-919566-01-4 Online version 2007, Manitoba Historical Society.
Profile revised: 27 December 2008
SOURCE: Manitoba Historical Society
The community of Gimli began with an idea for a colony of Icelanders within Canada which would allow them full citizenship and unhindered rights to preserve their language and culture. Sigtryggur Jonasson, Einar Jonasson and John Taylor are known as founding fathers of New Iceland, and hence of the community of Gimli. These three men led an official expedition in July of 1875 in search of a place for a large group of Icelanders who had temporarily settled at Kinmount Ontario to settle permanently. Skafti Arason, Kristjan Jonsson and Sigurdur Kristofersson joined the official party.
Having decided that no suitable land was available in eastern Canada they decided to head west. Due to poor farming conditions that year in southern parts of the prairies they turned to the Interlake region. Here they found land with good soil, abundant game and wild berries, woodlands for timber and firewood, the lake with abundant fish, First Nations peoples who were
friendly, ample room for the settlement to grow, and good transportation on the lake by boat or on the ice. They returned to Kinmount Ontario to report back to the group, and with the help of Lord Dufferin convinced the Canadian Government to make the settlers a grant of land on the west shore of Lake Winnipeg from the northern boundary of the province of Manitoba extending thirty-six miles to the Icelandic River and inland extending about ten miles. They named the region New Iceland.
Sigtryggur Jonasson as one of the initiators of the New Iceland settlement was appointed by the Canadian government as a government commissioner in November of 1876.
John Taylor, a lay missionary in the Kinmount area of Ontario who befriended the Icelanders, was instrumental in convincing the Canadian government to grant exclusive rights of colonization to the Icelanders and to provide for them to move from Kinmount to the area that was to become
New Iceland. He was appointed by the government of Canada as a government commissioner. John Taylor, with Fridjon Fridriksson as his translator, led the Icelanders on the arduous journey from Kinmount to New Iceland.
In a discussion along the way, Olafur Olafsson suggested that the first Icelandic town built in North America should be named Gimli, a name derived from the ancient Icelandic writings in the Elder Edda. The Elder Edda gives an account of the earth being destroyed and then rising again in a new and better place where good and worthy people would live in peace and harmony forever, and the place would be called Gimli. And so it was that the first settlement in New Iceland was named Gimli.
With no minister in the new community John Taylor conducted services that were translated by Fridjon Fridriksson into Icelandic.
There were many men and women who played important roles in the initial settlement of New Iceland. A sampling of the names of some of these men includes: Fridjon Fridriksson, merchant, postmaster and paymaster (see next page), Gudni Thorsteinsson, teacher, translator, founder of the community library, and homeopath, and Reverends Pall Thorlaksson and Jon Bjarnason, the first pastors in the community. The role of women in the founding of the community is often overlooked. However, many women were important in the leadership required to establish this new community. From leadership in teaching the young people of the community in the language of the new country, to provision of nursing and midwife care, to provision of clothing (knitting) and leadership in issues of women' rights these women were just as important to the establishment
of the community as the men. A very brief sample of these women includes: Caroline and Jane Taylor (daughters of John Taylor) [CORECTION: should read "neices of] , school teachers who taught in English in the first years of the settlement; Rebekka Gudmundsdottir, Holmfridur Jonsdottir and Vilborg Thorsteinsson, nurses and midwifes.
NOTES
New Iceland Heritage Museum
Gimli, Manitoba
John was born after the R&T society and could not have "founded" it.
John was born in 1812 and the http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/taylor_j.shtml
Extensive article on John at
http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/transactions/3/tayloricelandic.shtml
Sept 25, 1875, an expedition , almost 300 people, left Sarnia. They boarded the steamer "Ontario" After a seemingly endless voyage along the Great Lakes, they finally reached Duluth, Minnesota, then a village of 300 people. They were joined by 13 more from Milwaukee, Wisconsin..
They now went by the Northern Pacific Railway to Glyndon, near Moorhead, where they were all crowded into some type of factory. The next Sunday, John Taylor assembled them all for divine service, with Fridjon Fridriksson interpreting his sermon. He said, among other things, that God had appointed him to guide the Icelandic people in the great unknown land. Thereafter a gay dance was held in an old roundhouse to addian music. The day after, they reached Risher's Landing near Grand Forks, North Dakota. Here they again boarded a ship, an old-fashioned
sternwheeler called the "International", then on its last voyage, with two barges in tow. On these the people with their baggage were huddles together for several days under the open sky.
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:ydrEy-x565EJ:archiver.rootsweb.anc
estry.com/th/read/ICELAND/2002-08/1029961109+Bj%C3%B6rg+ship+and
+1873&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&client=firefox-a
Barbados, in Bridgetown
http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/transactions/3/tayloricelandic.shtml
Found Taylor Plantations down there before Richard Taylor was born. So it is possible William Stuart Taylor's Grandfather might have been there 100 years before Richard, no proof, just a hunch.
From letter in Carol Jarvies collection that I sent you (Bruce). "...He (John Taylor) was a very jovial character. He lived on the road between Grund and Baldur-on the hill known, as "Taylor's Hill", and below a little lake called "Taylor's Lake". I found out recently that the "Roll Curtain" on the stage in Argyle Hall(known later as "Grund Hall") was painted by Fred Swanson. It is too bad that it was destroyed, but it had become very brittle and torn and soiled. There was a scenic painting on it. This is translated from "Landnamssogu Nyja Island" by Thorleif Jackson-Page 102"
Possible connection to the Dukes of Norfolk. Research pending.
Also see William Stuart Taylor
John Taylor and the Pioneer Icelandic Settlement in Manitoba and his Plea on Behalf of the Persecuted Jewish People
by Wilhelm Kristjanson
MHS Transactions, Series 3, Number 32, 1975-76 Season
http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/transactions/3/tayloricelandic.shtml
