Monday, January 5, 2015
After tea one Saturday evening in mid-August 1872,
Lizzie Taylor sat reading when her husband, Dr. John Oliver Taylor, rose from
his chair, picked up a small vial, tipped it to his lips and ended his
life.
Before he expired, he took off his coat and boots
and, laying down on the bed, said to his wife:
“Lizzie, if you want to find any statement you’ll find it in the—in the—“ He died before he finished the sentence.
Lizzie had noticed that John had placed something to
his mouth but paid no attention to him doing so. She believed it was a bottle of liquor that she
knew he had stashed in the room.
He had seemed much more cheerful on the day that he finally
succumbed to depression. There was
nothing in his speech or behavior to raise suspicion of his intention to kill himself
with an ounce of deadly hydrogen cyanide poison at the age of 33. He left a letter he had written weeks earlier
for his wife. There was no inquest into
his death.
John Oliver Taylor was an Englishman,
born in 1838. Before taking his own life
that summer evening in Kewaunee, the city likely knew little of the factual background
of the man.
According
to an article in the Kewaunee newspaper a few days after his death, it was believed
that Dr. Taylor was a graduate of King's College in London and that he received
his medical degree in Edinburgh. However, John Oliver Taylor did not qualify as a doctor in Edinburgh nor
did he attend King's College in London.
Perhaps he believed no one would or could check his credentials at that
time.
Taylor actually began his medical training in
Ceylon and Calcutta at the age of 19 in 1857.
Based on an article in the Medical
Times and Gazette Medical News, John Oliver Taylor passed his examination
in the Science and Practice of Medicine and received a Certificate to Practice
as a general practitioner, not a surgeon, in June 1862 in Ceylon.
Dr. Taylor married Elizabeth “Lizzie” Marks a
year later, in June 1863 at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Calcutta.
It is unlikely that people in Kewaunee knew that
Dr. Taylor had been sentenced to six years penal servitude in India for
forgery. An October 1863 Indian newsletter
called Allen’s Indian Mail published an
article about the curious case of the Englishman Taylor who had “mixed in the
best society of Calcutta.”
Dr. John Oliver Taylor had learned of an account
at the Bank of Bengal that belonged to a mariner pilot also named John
Taylor. Dr. Taylor boldly went to the
bank, told them he was formerly a pilot and now a doctor, and wrote checks on
the other man’s bank account. Naturally
the crime was discovered and Dr. Taylor was arrested. He was tried in the High Court of Calcutta
and found guilty. Dr. Taylor was
condemned to six years of penal servitude which, for a European in India, was
nearly equal to capital punishment.
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| William H. Upham Photo from Wikipedia |
Dr. Taylor, it was said, served for a
number of years with the British Army in India.
If so, he did not serve his full jail sentence--maybe none of his
sentence--because he and his family arrived in Boston on August 15, 1867. He became a surgeon for the U.S. Army.
While serving in the U. S. Army for two
years, he met Lt. William H. Upham who was later the 18th governor
of Wisconsin. Through the efforts of Lt.
Upham, in the fall of 1869, Dr. Taylor and his family came to live in Kewaunee
where Taylor’s knowledge of his profession was generally accepted.
Unfortunately, Dr. Taylor became
addicted to opium and liquor. He resolved
to rid himself of the habits but to no avail.
The addiction and depression led to his self-inflicted demise.
Dr. Taylor was buried in the Kewaunee
Public Cemetery which is likely Riverview Cemetery. His wife and four small
children were left to mourn his untimely death.
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| Sir Edward Thornton from Vanity Fair Magazine |
His family was returned to England at
the expense of the British government through the efforts of British Minister
to the United States Sir Edward Thornton.
What became of Dr. Taylor’s widow and children? After returning to England, the family lived
in Lewisham, Kent according to the England census of 1881. His widow, Elizabeth, became a “School
Mistress.” She remarried in 1882 to her
cousin, Francis MacDonald Swallow, who was also a doctor. Elizabeth died in 1922 in Buckinghamshire,
England according to family records.
Both of Dr. Taylor’s daughters—Evelyn
and Ida Lizzie—died in England, unmarried.
Taylor’s
first son, Charles, had witnessed Dr. Taylor’s suicide at three or four years
of age. What became of Charles is
unknown; he could not be traced after the 1881 England census.
Taylor’s
second son was named Donald. Donald’s first wife died in childbirth in 1904
in England. Donald disappeared, leaving
a three year-old son and five year-old daughter. Records indicate that Donald remarried in
1905 but did not return for his children and was never seen by the family
again.
Dr.
Taylor’s real life story is one that qualifies as stranger than fiction.
Anyone
with more information about Dr. Taylor or his family is asked to contact
Shirley VerBruggen at sverbruggen@new.rr.com. John Oliver Taylor’s descendants are very
interested to learn more about him.
