Susan Ann (Baker) Taylor (1848 - 1912)

Born 6 Aug 1848 in Liberty, Georgia, United States

Wife of Edward King — married about 1862 (to Sep 1866) in Saint Simons Island, Glynn, Georgia, United States

Wife of Russell L. Taylor — married 20 Apr 1879 in Liberty County, Georgia

Died 6 Oct 1912 at age 64 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States

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Biography

Susie (Baker) Taylor is Notable.

Susie (Baker) Taylor was a Georgian.

Susie traveled with her husband's unit and served as a nurse for the 33rd United States Colored Troops also teaching the soldiers how to read and write.
Honored for eternity:
In Memoriam

Susan Taylor was a former slave who served as a nurse during the Civil War, while also teaching the soldiers how to read and write.

Susan was born in 1848 at a slave plantation^[1]on the Isle of Wight, Liberty County, Georgia.^[2]Her parents were Hagar Ann (Reed) and Raymond Baker, Susie was the eldest of nine children. When she was young, Susie's mother Hagar was a waitress for the Grest family on the Valentine Grest Plantation on the Isle of Wight. When Mr. Grest was away from the family, Susie was told by her mother that she and her brother would sleep at the foot of Mrs. Grest's bed to keep her company. Should Mr. Grest return home before expected, the children were put on the floor.^[3]. Susie was secretly taught to read by his wife Mary Grest. ^[4]

Susan (Susie) Baker's grandmother, born in 1820, was named Dolly, after her grandmother; in 1833 she married Fortune Lambert Reed. Susie at the age of seven years (along with her brother), were allowed by Mrs. Grest to go to Savannah where they lived with their grandmother, Dolly Reed, who was by now was a widow as well as a free woman of color. Susie's mother, Hagar Baker remained at Grest Farm.^[3]Mrs. Reed, Susie's grandmother, secretly sent her to school where she was educated to read and write.^[1](One of her teachers was Mother Mathilda Beasley of Savannah, Georgia’s first African American Catholic nun.)^[4] When the sea islands became under the control of the Union forces, Susie and her family fled to St. Catherine's Island where they were taken aboard the USS Potomska, a Union gunboat. Here she met her future husband Edward King.^[2]

While on board the USS Potomska, Susie had impressed a commanding officer with her ability to read and write, so when they arrived at St. Simons Island, she was asked "to take charge of a school for children on the island."^[2]It was during this time that Susie married Edward King, a black noncommissioned officer in the First South Carolina Volunteers of African Descent, later called the 33rd United States Colored Troops. She served more than three years as nurse with the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops Infantry Regiment, although officially enrolled as a laundress. While serving with the regiment, she also taught soldiers, civilians and children to read. She also organized African American women, including Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, to care for sick and wounded Black soldiers during the Civil War. ^[1]

Susie writes: "It seems strange how our aversion to seeing suffering is overcome in war, - how we are able to see the most sickening sights, such as men with their limbs blown off and mangled by the deadly shells, without a shudder; and instead of turning away, how we hurry to assist in alleviating their pain, binding up their wounds, and press the cool water to their parched lips, with feelings only of sympathy and pity." ("Reminiscences of My Life in Camp" by Susie King Taylor. 1902)^[2]

When the Civil War ended Susie and Edward returned to Savannah in about 1865/1866.^[2][1]She and several others aided Union soldiers who were prisoners of war by passing food through the fence of the food prison fence, even though they knew the penalty if they were caught would be torture or death.^[2]

Edward King died in Savannah in September 16, 1866, a few months before the birth of their first child.^[1]

Susie states: "my husband, Sergeant King, died, leaving me soon to welcome a little stranger alone...In December, 1866, I was obliged to give up teaching, but in April, 1867, I opened a school in Liberty County, Georgia. (p.54) ^[2]

Susie traveled to Boston in the 1870s as a domestic servant of a wealthy white family. It was here that she met Russell L. Taylor, from Georgia. In Georgia on April 20,1879 she married Russell and together they went back to Boston where she spent the rest of her life.^[1]

On February 3, 1898, she was called to the Shreveport, Louisiana bedside of her dying son. After he died, she wrote her memoir, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp, which was privately published in 1902.^[2][1]Wanting to reveal what it was like in the Jim Crow south she wrote:

"The war of 1861 came and was ended...and we thought our race was forever free from bondage, and that the two races could live in unity with each other, but... in this 'land of the free' we are burned, tortured, and denied a fair trial, murdered for any imaginary wrong conceived in he brain of the nero-hating white man. There is no redress for us from a government which promised to protect all under its flag. They say, 'One flag, one nation, one country indivisible.' Is this true?"("Reminiscences of My Life in Camp" by Susie King Taylor. 1902)^[2]

Susan (Susie) (Baker) (Taylor) King is considered to be one of the founders of the Women's Relief Corps, an organization dedicated to female veterans. In the late 1880s , she created the all-Black WRC Corps. No. 67 in Boston serving as its president for more than three terms. ^[5]

She died in 1912 and was buried next to her second husband, Edward King, at Mount Hope Cemetery in Roslindale, Massachusetts.^[6]It is unknown when her mother, Hagar (Reed) Baker died; however Susie's grandmother Dolly (Unknown) Reed died in May 1889.^[3]

In 2018, she was the recipient of the Georgia Women of Achievement Award. ^[4]In 2019, the Georgia Historical Society erected a historical marker honoring King Taylor near the Midway First Presbyterian Church in Midway, Georgia. ^[7] In 2020, the Boston Parks and Recreation Department marked her grave with an upright granite marker with her story inscribed on the front along with her portrait, wearing her nursing uniform.^[5]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6} Wikipedia article.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8} Cordell, M. R. "Courageous Women of the Civil War" Chicago Review Press. 2016, pp. 111 - 118.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2} Documenting the American South. Text electronic edition, scanned by LeeAnn Morawski. Susie King Taylor. "Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33D United States Colored Troops Late 1st S. C. Volunteers." Published by the Author. Boston. (1902). pp 1-5.link
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2} Georgia Women of Achievement : Susie Baker King Taylor, 2018 Honoree
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} Susie King receives monument Coastal Courier. Oct 16, 2021
6. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (www.findagrave.com/memorial/8255625/susie-king_taylor : accessed 04 June 2021), memorial page for Susie Baker King Taylor (6 Aug 1848–6 Oct 1912), Find A Grave: Memorial #8255625, citing Mount Hope Cemetery, Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA ; Maintained by Find A Grave .
7. ↑ [1] Susie King Taylor Community School

• "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M9TT-HXT : accessed 23 November 2021), Susie A Taylor in household of Russ Taylor, Precinct 5 Boston city Ward 10, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 1298, sheet 16B, family 211

See also:

• Wikidata: Item Q14954671, en:Wikipedia
• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : modified 12 November 2021, 16:57), entry for Susan Ann Baker (PID https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:MBWJ-RVT ); contributed by various users.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susie_King_Taylor#Biography found on Find A Grave: Memorial #8255625