John Taylor, the third president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was born in Milnthorpe, Westmoreland, England, on Nov. 1, 1808, in a home described in a land tax document as “a house with a garden.”
When John Taylor was 11 years old, the Taylor family took residence in this farmhouse in Hale.
Kenneth Mays
John Taylor was christened in St. Peter’s Church, the parish church at Heversham, a village close to Milnthorpe. It was the same church in which his father, James, had been baptized as an infant. The present church is mostly a reconstruction of an earlier structure following a fire in 1601.
The James Taylor family remained in Milnthorpe for several years. In 1814, James Taylor received a government appointment requiring a move to Liverpool. The family resided in Liverpool for the ensuing five years, then returned to Westmoreland and the village of Hale.
Not only did John Taylor’s father inherit a farmhouse and 7 acres of land in Hale, he may have inherited King’s Arms Inn, located just a short distance from the farmhouse.
John Taylor attended grammar school for three years in the nearby village of Beetham in a building resembling one which is currently situated near the site of the original building.
While in the village of Penrith, John Taylor served as a local preacher in the Methodist Church at age 16. He remarked to a friend near the village that, according to the voice of the Spirit, “I have a strong impression on my mind that I have to go to America to preach the gospel."
Note: Some of this information was provided by J. Lewis Taylor of the John Taylor Family Organization.