Davies
Co., Ky., of which Mr. Taylor was elected president. He soon after
wrote a manual for Colored schools, which was generally used in that
section. In 1869 he attended the first Colored political convention
ever held in Kentucky, at Major Hall in Frankfort. He was one of the
Educational Committee, and submitted a report. This year he was also a
member of a convention at Jackson Street Church, Louisville, which
inaugurated the movement for the Lexington M. E. Conference. He was
licensed as a local preacher this year by Rev. Hanson Tolbert at
Hardinsburg, and was assisted in the study of theology by Rev. R. G.
Gardiner, J. H. Lennin, and Dr. R. S. Rust. He went to Arkansas as a
missionary teacher and preacher at the call of Rev. W. J. Gladwin, and
remained there one year. He organized several societies, of the
Church, taught school at Midway, Forrest City, and Wittsburg; took
part in the political campaign of that year; and was nominated, but
declined to run, for Representative from Saint Frances County.

He preached in Texas, Indian Territory, and Missouri; was put in peril
by the Ku Klux at Hot Springs; took the chills and returned to Ky., in
1871. He was then appointed to the Litchfield Circuit, Southwestern
Kentucky. In 1872 he united with the Lexington Conference of M. E.
Church on trial. He was ordained a deacon by Bishop Levi Scott at
Maysville, Ky., and sent to Coke Chapel, Louisville, Ky., and Wesley
Chapel, Jeffersonville, Indiana. He remained in this charge three
years, during which time he published the monthly "Kentucky
Methodist," and wrote extensively for the press. He was elected
assistant secretary, editor of the printed minutes of the conference,
and finally secretary. In 1875 he was sent as pastor to Indianapolis,
Ind. He was ordained elder by Bishop Wiley at Lexington in 1876, and
returned to Indianapolis. He took an active part in the political
campaign of 1876, and was sent to Union Chapel, Cincinnati, 1877-8. In
1879 the faculty of Central Tennessee College, at Nashville,
Tennessee, conferred upon him the title and credentials of a Doctor of
Divinity. He wrote the life of Rev. Geo. W. Downing.

In 1879 Dr. Taylor was appointed Presiding Elder of the Ohio District,
Lexington Conference. In 1880 he was sent as fraternal delegate from
the M. E. to the A. M. E. General Conference at St. Louis; he having
been previously elected lay delegate to the General Conference of the
M. E. Church in Brooklyn