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Colling?s Corner
By E.S. Colling-City-County Library Writer
mho m	?Taylor
brought his troops
of the 8th
SL
brougi
Ififantrv regiment to Bay Louis (then Shleldsboro) In 1520._ It must have been a big event for the little town. The influx of several hundred men must have meant the building of barracks, mess hall, officers? quarters and supply buildings, as well as the laying out of a large drill grounds, and the Impact on the village?s business and social life must have been notable. Which makes it all the more mysterious that not a word about Col. Taylor. his men or their camp canEefound In contemporary nnhl IcaHnnc nr memoirs. Nobody seems to know the location of this large camp. Even the regiment?s own records, now in the Military Records Division of the National Archives In Washington, make no mention of the site, referring to the camp merely as Canton-'tient ?av at. Louis. i nere Is
some
might
River
local speculation that It have been In the Pearl area or norhflnc at the .irmrqan Rlvpr.
the
mouth of______________
If anyone reading this can cite more definite information, he will be doing history a favor
by communicating with the City-County Library.
At any rate, the camp Is known to have been active until at least June 1, 1821, when the 8th Infantry was discharged and Col. Taylor was trans-? ferred to command of the 1st Infantry and two months later to the 7th Infantry at Natchitoches, Louisiana.
In 1823 Taylor purchased a plantation near St. Francis-ville, La., and became greatly interested in property in Wilkinson County, Mississippi across the river from his plantation, and purchased some of this land In 1831. In 1842 he bought the Cypress Grove plantation near Rodney, Mississippi, and spent much of his time here after his return from the Mexican war. By then he had become so identified with this State that during the Presidential election campaign of 1848 some newspapers referred to him as ?Zachary Taylor of Mississippi.'1
JUimjUB'ir he eventually became a national hero, Taylor?s life had plenty of sadness in it. When he came to Bay St. Louis his wife was desperately 111 In Kentucky, and while he was here, In 1820, the two youngest of his four daughters, Octavla, nearly four, and Margaret, fifteen months, died of what Col. Taylor described as ?the climate?; possibly It was yellow fever. Mrs. Taylor recovered, but Sarah, the second daughter, also died fifteen years later In Mississippi, soon after her marriage to Jefferson Davis. Ann, the eldest daughter, lived until 1875, but Taylor himself died in 1850 in the White House after serving only two years as President of the United States. Mrs. Taylor, in poor health for most of her life, died two years later at East Pascagoula, Mississippi.
We repeat that it is most regrettable that despite all the time that Col. Taylor spent In our very midst there is no known record of his dally life, his friends or social activities, In Hancock County. He obviously was a personable man, and an Important one, and It is incredible that no citizen of Shleldsboro noted his activities here. We hope that anyone who knows of such a record, no matter how incomplete, will come for ward and communicate It to the Library. In the meantime, next week we shall present some of ; the highlights of the romance of ! Sarah Knox Taylor and Jefferson Davis.
Colling?s Corner
E.S. Colling-
*
City-CoUnty Library Write]
Zachary Taylor?s second daughter, Sarah Knox, has been described as ?pretty and accomplished? ? which probably meant that she had the natural charms of a "^eU-bred young lady i.nd that she Could sew, play the piano and' "speak a little French. She also was said to be ?frail?, which wasn?t surprising as she had been In delicate health for most of her nineteen years. Nor does the record say where she first met Jefferson Davis, tho if'fprSbably ?was at the Taylor home in Kentucky or at the estate of her favorite aunt In West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana.
At any rate, the young couple did meet, and fell deeply in love. Davis was then (1833) in the seventh year of service with the army after graduating from West Point and was stationed at Fort Crawford In Wisconsin under the coijjjnaijd of Col. Taylor, Sarah?s father, who strongly disapproved of the match. The young man?s home was then at Brlerfield, a small plantation In Mississippi near Woodvllle in Wilkinson County owned by his brother Joseph, who figured so largely In his life for the next twenty-five years.
As with many another couple In history, Sarah and Jefferson dis-regarded the parental ban and became engaged to marry. Sarah left tier mother?s home and went to live with an aunt in Kentucky, and a little later, when all efforts to move Col. Taylor from his stand a-galnst the match had failed,
time later, and set home at Brlerfield.
Within a month, Sa Davis was dead, supp malarial fever, from \ had suffered prevloi was the third of Tayl daughters to succum malady. All of the ? Brlerfield had faller with the gentle young deeply mourned her Davis himself also 1 down with the fever corpbined with his clover the death of hi young wife, put his li pardy too, and it w time before he rear a nervous disorder plague him for the I life. He remained at in seclusion for seve but eventually be cam* ed in politics again years later married1 well.
Many of these 1 events took place rl own back yard, anc knowledge of them i spective to living i slppi; your local 11 many books and arti Ing on them. Many re ries, indeed, are writes? of actual e\ past, and certainly r day is just the sam when Sarah Knox 1 a girl. But a knowle went on in the old d? it was only a pattei goes on today, Is lr charting the course times. As one old; ?Yon ran see bette