John Louis Taylor (March 1, 1769 – January 29, 1829) was an American jurist who served as the first chief justice of North Carolina from 1819 to 1829.
Early life and education
Born in London, England, he is the only foreign-born Chief Justice in state history. He was brought to America at the age of 12 and attended the College of William & Mary.
Before 1818, several North Carolina Superior Court judges met en banc twice each year, to review appeals and disputes from their own trial courts. This was eventually called the "Supreme Court". He sat as part of this Court often and in 1810 was chosen as its chief justice. When the North Carolina General Assembly decided to create a full-time, distinct Supreme Court in 1818, the legislators chose three men to make up the new Court: Taylor, Leonard Henderson, and John Hall. The three met and elected Taylor to once again assume his title of chief justice.
Taylor was a prominent Freemason and served as Grand Senior Warden of North Carolina, while William R. Davie was Grand Master, and he himself served as Grand Master from 1802 to 1804 and from 1814 to 1817.[3] He was a member of Phoenix Lodge No. 8, A.F. & A.M., Fayetteville, North Carolina.[4]
Taylor's namesake grandson, John L. T. Sneed, served as a justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court.[5]
Selected works
The North Carolina Law Repository (two volumes, 1814–16)
Term Reports (1818)
On the Duties of Executors and Administrators (1825)
^John Baxton Flowers, III; Mary Alice Hinson (July 1975). "Elmwood"(PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 2015-05-01.
