Joseph and Lois (Bell) Taylor

Joseph Taylor was born in Connecticut about 1762. He died on June 15, 1840 at the age of 73 years. Lois Bell Taylor was born in Connecticut on February 14, 1773, and she died on December 30, 1869, at the age of 96. Joseph and Lois (Bell) Taylor were buried in the old Perkins Cemetery, but were re-interred at the current Perkins Cemetery in the 1940s. 

According to Hewson Peeke's book A STANDARD HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY, OHIO (Lewis Pub. Co., 1916), Joseph Taylor was one of several families who settled in Perkins Township in 1815. The group left Glastonbury, Connecticut and traveled by oxen train to Ohio, led by John Beatty. The settlers bought land from Mr. Beatty, and cleared the land and built log cabins. The settlement was called the "Yankee settlement." In the book MEMORIAL TO THE PIONEER WOMEN OF THE WESTERN RESERVE, we read that Mrs. Lois Bell walked most of the way from Glastonbury, Connecticut to Ohio. When the settlers reached Perkins, Mrs. Lois Bell was the only woman owning an iron kettle, and she loaned it out to her neighbors. She often assisted in putting out prairie fires in those early years of Perkins Township. In her old age, Lois Bell Taylor was blind, but she could still knit, and she was able to repeat the Gospel of John, never missing a word of its first seventeen chapters. It is said that when she died at the age of ninety-six, she had spent her life serving others.

Records in the Pedigree File portion of Family Search indicate that Lois Bell was the second wife of Joseph Taylor, and that his first wife had been Hannah Bell, most likely a relative of Lois Bell. Joseph Taylor married Lois Bell about 1805, prior to their move to Ohio. Joseph and Lois Taylor truly were Firelands Pioneers.