In 1866 Mr. Taylor opened a Freedmen's School at Hardinsburg Breckenridge Co., Ky. This was in an old church, the property of the M. E. Church South. It had been donated for church purposes by George Blanford. If used otherwise it was to revert to the donor. A Negro school was obnoxious to the community. His was the first there had ever been in the village, and notwithstanding the white people had long since abandoned the property to the Colored people this question was now raised in order to break up the school. It did not succeed, as they easily proved that the original intent of the donor was not violated, since Colored people still used the property as a church. Failing in this the school was tormented by ruffians. Pepper was rolled up in cotton, set on fire, and hurled into the room to set every one coughing. Finally threats of personal violence were made if he did not leave, but Mr. Taylor armed himself, defied the enemies of freedom, and stayed. At last, on Christmas evening, Dec. 25, 1867, the house was blown up with powder. The arrangement was to set off the blast with a slow match so as to catch the house full of people, there being a school exhibition that night. The explosion took place at 11:30 P.M., but owing to the excitement occasioned by the novelty of such a thing as a "Negro School Exhibition," the crowd had gathered much earlier than announced. The programme was completed before 11 P.M., and by this accident the school and teacher were saved. The old wreck still remains a monument to color prejudice.
By the aid of the Freedmen's Bureau another school-house was soon built, and the school proceeded. This was followed by a meeting-house. The white people, whose sentiments were now rapidly turning, subscribed liberally toward it.
In 1868 an educational convention was held at Owensboro, in Davies Co., Ky., of which Mr. Taylor was elected president. He soon after wrote a manual for Colored schools, which was generally used in that section. In 1869 he attended the first Colored political convention ever held in Kentucky, at Major Hall in Frankfort. He was one of the Educational Committee, and submitted a report. This year he was also a member of a convention at Jackson Street Church, Louisville, which inaugurated the movement for the Lexington M. E. Conference. He was licensed as a local preacher this year by Rev. Hanson Tolbert at Hardinsburg, and was assisted in the study of theology by Rev. R. G. Gardiner, J. H. Lennin, and Dr. R. S. Rust. He went to Arkansas as a missionary teacher and preacher at the call of Rev. W. J. Gladwin, and remained there one year. He organized several societies, of the Church, taught school at Midway, Forrest City, and Wittsburg; took part in the political campaign of that year; and was nominated, but declined to run, for Representative from Saint Frances County.
He preached in Texas, Indian Territory, and Missouri; was put in peril by the Ku Klux at Hot Springs; took the chills and returned to Ky., in 1871. He was then appointed to the Litchfield Circuit, Southwestern Kentucky. In 1872 he united with the Lexington Conference of M. E. Church on trial. He was ordained a deacon by Bishop Levi Scott at Maysville, Ky., and sent to Coke Chapel, Louisville, Ky., and Wesley Chapel, Jeffersonville, Indiana. He remained in this charge three years, during which time he published the monthly "Kentucky Methodist," and wrote extensively for the press. He was elected assistant secretary, editor of the printed minutes of the conference, and finally secretary. In 1875 he was sent as pastor to Indianapolis, Ind. He was ordained elder by Bishop Wiley at Lexington in 1876, and returned to Indianapolis. He took an active part in the political campaign of 1876, and was sent to Union Chapel, Cincinnati, 1877-8. In 1879 the faculty of Central Tennessee College, at Nashville, Tennessee, conferred upon him the title and credentials of a Doctor of Divinity. He wrote the life of Rev. Geo. W. Downing.
In 1879 Dr. Taylor was appointed Presiding Elder of the Ohio District, Lexington Conference. In 1880 he was sent as fraternal delegate from the M. E. to the A. M. E. General Conference at St. Louis; he having been previously elected lay delegate to the General Conference of the M. E. Church in Brooklyn, New York, in 1879. He was the youngest member of that body. Upon his motion fraternal representatives were sent to the various Colored denominations of Methodists. He was appointed in 1881 as a delegate from the M. E. Church to the Ecumenical Conference at London, England. He was the caucus nominee of the Colored delegates to the General Conference in Cincinnati in 1880 for bishop. He was always opposed to caste discriminations in Church, State, or society. He has opposed Colored conferences and a Colored bishop as tending to perpetuate discriminations. He does not oppose the election of Colored men, but wishes that every honor may fall upon them because of merit and not on account of their color. He has become famous as an eloquent preacher, safe teacher, ready speaker, and earnest worker; always aiming to do the greatest good to the greatest number. Certainly the Methodist Episcopal Church has reason to be proud of Marshall W. Taylor.
In this Church there are many other worthy and able Colored preachers. The relations they sustain to the eloquent, scholarly, and pious white clergymen of the denomination are pleasant and beneficial. It is an education. And the fact that the best pulpits of white men are opened to the Colored preachers is a prophecy that race antagonisms in the Christian Church, so tenacious and harmful, are to perish speedily.
FOOTNOTES:
[130] Stevens's Hist. of M. E. Church, pp. 174, 175; also Lednum, p. 282.
[131] And there was not a single State where this rule could be applied. Slavery ruled the land.