R. Fenwick Taylor

Who was R. Fenwick Taylor?

Robert Fenwick Taylor was a Florida lawyer and a Democratic politician who served on the Florida Supreme Court. He was first appointed on January 1, 1891. He resigned February 28, 1925. He served three terms as Chief Justice, from 1897 to 1905, from 1915 to 1917, and from 1923 to 1925.

Justice Taylor was born in Myrtle Hill, South Carolina. His father, John Morgandollar Taylor, was a cotton and rice planter in Beaufort District, South Carolina. His mother was Maria Taylor. The family moved to Marion County, Florida before Taylor was three. Taylor was tutored at home. Taylor fought as a volunteer in the Battle of Gainesville. After the end of the War, he went to school at Baltimore's Maryland Military Institute. He left MMI and was tutored in "ancient languages" before reading law.

Taylor then read law with his brother-in-law, Gainesville, Florida attorney James B. Dawkins, an attendee of the Florida secession convention and a member of the Congress of the Confederate States. In 1870 he was admitted to the Ocala Bar. He and Dawkins shared a law practice in Gainsville for seven years. After Dawkins became a judge, Taylor partnered with Edward C. F. Sanchez. He worked behind the scenes in Democratic, anti-Reconstruction politics until Alachua County Democrats sent him and Dawkins to the constitutional convention of 1885, where he chaired a committee.