William Wesley Taylor

William Wesley Taylor was born on April 18, 1837, in Lawrence County, Arkansas, to Milledge Taylor and Hester Ann Cravens Taylor. William married Francis Elvira Gibson in about 1857, and they had 12 children together.

In 1877, he moved with much of his family to Texas near Slidell. He lived in various places in and around Slidell and Denton Creek. William was a kind, outgoing religious man who helped to build the Baptist Church in Slidell on land that he donated.

In 1898, William and his sons Seymour and Ashley moved to Bloomington in Greer County, Oklahoma Territory. William and Seymour filed on some land. Some time later Francis and William's daughter Minnie traveled to Oklahoma Territory and were met by William in a wagon. Seymour had built their dugout house, and when Francis and Minnie arrived they tacked canvas on the living room walls.

While living in Greer County, William learned of George Blalock's plan to create a stock corporation that would purchase a large amount of land in Mexico and then settle the stockholders on the land. His interest led him to join the Greer County Mexico Colony, the organization formed to pursue the establishment of the stock corporation and land purchase.

After a long search for a suitable property, George Blalock found the Hacienda "El Chamal," an attractive tract of land in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The Greer County Mexico Colony members decided it was important for a committee of its members to visit and assess the value of the property. In October of 1902, William journeyed into Mexico with five other committee members ".to look at and report on the 167,000 acre tract of land." This committee ".returned and report(ed) favorably." on the value of the land and proposition.

Once the corporation, The Blalock Mexico Colony, was established, William purchased 20 shares for $50 per share totaling $1,000 and committed he and his family to move to Mexico to live on this property.

After months of preparation the first group of colonists were ready to ride chartered train cars to this new land. On Friday, February 20, 1903, at 3 A.M. the "All Aboard" was heard, and William and the first contingent of colonists left Mangum for the Hacienda Chamal later nicknamed The Valley of Paradise. William was joined on the trip by his wife and two of his sons, Seymour (26) and Ashley Taylor (23). Sarah Ann Gorham, William's oldest child, her husband, Franklin Pierce Gorham, and their children also made the trip to El Chamal.

Two weeks later they arrived at the rail station of Escandon. They traveled by horse and wagon with all their belongings about thirty miles to Old Chamal, the meeting place for all colony members. There they began the arduous task of carving out a living in the raw wilderness of Chamal.

William's wife, Francis, died in August of 1903, and was buried in the Chamal cemetery. In 1904, William returned to Lawrence County, Arkansas, to find another wife. He married Mrs. Susan Hooper, a woman he had known when he was young, and returned with her and her great-niece, Ellen, to Chamal.

William died on March 29, 1906, at the age of 68 and is buried in the cemetery at Chamal. Some of his descendants live on the same property to this very day.

(Some of the information for this biography was taken from Almost Two Centuries with the Taylor Clan by Ellen Taylor.)