My Genealogy Hound

SUSAN LUCY BARRY was born in Fayette County, near Lexington, Ky., on the 27th of September, 1807. Her father was the Hon. William T. Barry, then a rising young lawyer, who afterward became one of the distinguished Democratic statesmen of Kentucky. Her mother was Lucy Overton, a daughter of Mr. Waller Overton, who was one of the earliest pioneers of Fayette County. Her mother dying when Susan was but two years of age, her father married Miss Catherine Mason, of Virginia, who reared the child with the tenderness of an own mother. Miss Barry was endowed with fine talents, and graduated with distinction at the Lafayette Female Academy at Lexington, under the instruction of the eminent teacher Col. Josiah Dunham. In 1824, at the age of sixteen, she was married to Mr. James Taylor, who was a young man of twenty-two years, and who had just graduated at the Transylvania Law School. They settled in Newport. Mrs. Taylor was noted for her simplicity in dress, for gentle and unassuming manners, and for her industry and domestic tastes; she was a lady who looked well to the ways of her household. She reared six children, who were Mrs. Thomas L. Jones, Mrs. Col. James W. Abert, James Taylor, Col. John B. Taylor, Barry Taylor and Mrs. Dr. R. W. Saunders. In her infancy Mrs. Taylor had been baptized in the Protestant Episcopal Church, but after her marriage she embraced the Baptist religion, and was immersed in the Ohio River at Cincinnati by the Rev. Mr. Vardeman. In later years she was confirmed in the Protestant Episcopal Church, to which she adhered with a zealous faith. She was a useful member of society, participating in all enterprises for the benefit of the churches, and for general charities. At the age of seventy-four years she died, on the 8th of December, 1881, beloved and lamented by all who knew her.