JANE TAYLOR
Jane Taylor was born on 1 Jan 1805 at Tamis Valley, Williamson County, Tennessee to Billington Taylor and Mary Elizabeth Modglin. Her parents were both born in Chatham, North Carolina. Her father was a farmer and frontiersman and moved his family often. When Jane was born they were living in Tennessee, but a few years later her family moved to Ohio, then finally settled in Illinois. It is believed that the Taylors were good, God-fearing Baptists.
When Jane was 15 years old, on 3 Oct 1820, she married Edmond Nelson at Waterloo, Monroe County, Illinois. Edmond was born in Orange County, North Carolina and was probably a Presbyterian, with Scotch/Irish ancestry. Not much is known about the ancestry of Jane Taylor.
Jane and Edmond were living in Monroe County, Illinois (or across the river at Keokuk, Lee County, Iowa), in 1822 when their first child, Price Williams, was born. From there they moved to Mt. Vernon, Jefferson County, Illinois, where their next child, Elizabeth, was born in 1824. At this time Southern Illinois was mostly unsettled, and people lived in cabins and worked small plots of fertile ground they could easily cultivate. Six more children were born to them at Mt. Vernon before 1838.
During this time there was lots of talk about the Mormons. Jane and Edmond, after hearing mostly bad things, decided to investigate for themselves. The Spirit worked on them and they were converted. Edmond joined the Church in 1836. Jane waited until they had moved to Caldwell County to live with the main body of the Saints in 1838 before she was baptized at Adam-Ondi-Ahman by Lyman Wight. She was 34 years old and 7 months pregnant with her 9th child at that time. Her family had been driven from their homes by Anti-Mormon mobs, which had also confiscated their property.
With the main body of the Saints, Jane and Edmond moved from Missouri to a place later named Nauvoo, where they owned one and one half city lots. Their property contained an outcropping of rock, which the family quarried and sold to help build the city. Edmond paid his tithing and temple assessments in rock from his quarry. He and his sons also worked with lumber, which was also used to build the temple.
In spite of persecution, they always remained faithful to the Gospel. Their 8th child, Thomas, was baptized by the Prophet Joseph in the Mississippi River when he was eight years old and named their 9th child Joseph Smith Nelson. Jane had 13 children who all lived to adulthood, which was remarkable for those difficult times.
Jane and Edmond lived in Nauvoo for about six years. Both Jane and Edmond, along with their eldest son, Price Williams, were endowed in the Nauvoo temple on 7 February, 1846, just as the Saints were being driven from their beautiful home at Nauvoo.
The Nelsons fled to Mt. Pisgah, Iowa, were their last child, Anna, was born. At Mt. Pisgah, Edmond and his sons planted a good crop of corn and the family. For about four years they lived here and witnessed all of the things recorded in Church history. They planned to go west with the Saints and on May 8, 1850, they started for Salt Lake City, crossing the plains with Thomas Johnson’s company. They had two wagons, the first pulled by old steers and the second by ponies, which were later traded for oxen. There were difficulties on the trip, Edmond’s nephew died and was buried in a shallow grave, on top of which a fire was built so the Indians or the wolves would not dig up the body. However, one of their sons later wrote that in crossing the plains: Awe had plenty of good men and good women, and lots of young folks and plenty of good singers, plenty of music, and lots of preaching, lots of good singing and praying. We entered Salt Lake a happy band of Saints.
During the trip Jane’s husband, Edmond, was probably bitten by a wood tick and contracted Mountain Fever, from which he never really recovered. They reached Salt Lake on 9 Sept 1850, and camped on Public Square for two days until Brigham Young asked them to go to Mountainville (now Alpine). They were able to build a house before the snows came, but Edmond died on 13 Dec. 1850, just 3 months after reaching Utah. Edmond was the first person to be buried in the cemetery at Alpine.
Jane, now a 45 year old widow with several young children to raise, faced tremendous hardships. She moved to be close to her married children. In 1860, she moved to Cache County, in northern Utah, as one of the first six families to move to Franklin. They recorded that the roads were muddy most of the way, it took them five days to go eight miles because of the snow and mud. Here they camped in their wagon until they built a home, just in time for winter. They were living at Franklin three years later when the U.S. Calvary, with Porter Rockwell as a guide, came and slaughtered about 400 Indians at the Bear River Massacre. Jane’s son, William, documented this tragedyBthe worst in the history of the West. (He later served as bishop at Franklin for 16 years.) Edmond, who helped haul the wounded soldiers back to their fort in Utah, later made two trips back to the midwest to help destitute saints before migrating to California, Arizona and Mexico, while another son, Joseph Smith Nelson, was the sheriff of Franklin and Cache County for many years. Another son, Thomas, settled Bloomington, in Bear Lake County, Idaho where he started the first martial band in Idaho (he later moved to Thatcher, Arizona, where he died.)
Jane spent the rest of her life at Franklin, where she passed away on June 2, 1870 at the age of 66 years. The notice of her death and funeral was printed on the front page of the June 29, 1870 ADeseret Newsin Salt Lake, which was done for only the most prominent of people. The article states that Jane Awas a faithful Saint, an affectionate mother, and was highly esteemed by all who knew her. The people of this city (Franklin) turned out Aen masseto pay the last tribute of respect to her remains.
Jane’s body was undoubtedly buried in the city cemetery just south of Franklin. Some records, including the ADeseret Newsstate she was buried at Franklin, Cache County, Utah, and some say Franklin, Franklin County, Idaho. The confusion is clarified when one drives past this little pioneer cemetery just off Highway 34; it is located right at the border between the two states.
One hundred twenty four years after Jane’s burial, some members of the Nelson family tried to locate her grave site but could not identify it. The cemetery records were lost, although the graves of two of Jane’s grandchildren were located. After considerable research, in 1994, these Nelson relatives placed a new headstone for Jane Taylor Nelson next to the graves of her grandchildren, believing that this is the most logical place she would have been buried. As these priesthood holders dedicated this monument they were touched by the Spirit that indicated that this was indeed an appropriate place for this monument.
According to Jane’s direct descendent, Rodney Nelson, a retired LDS Seminary teacher, the traditions of a Lamanite ancestor in the Nelson family are deeply rooted and persistent. There are several theories of who could be the Indian Grandmother. In an article he wrote in 1999, Rodney states that his grandfather, Price Williams, Jr., said that his grandmother (Philomela Smith Lake or Jane Taylor) was a half-breed Cherokee Indian and one of the darkest Indians he had ever seen. Photographs exist of Philomelia but not of Jane Taylor. Philomela, a relative of Joseph Smith, was indeed white, which leaves Jane Taylor as the half-breed Cherokee. In discussing additional circumstantial evidence, Rodney asks why Jane Taylor’s grave would have been forgotten, especially with so many of her descendants living in and around Franklin, Idaho, for so many years. He postulates, it is possible that the descendants of Jane Taylor would have been a little less valiant in caring for the final resting place of a Lamanite than for others in the family.
Is our Indian Grandmother really buried at the little cemetery of the oldest town in Idaho?