Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor
Born: September 21, 1788 at Calvert County, Maryland
Died: August 14, 1852 (aged 63) at Pascagoula, Mississippi
Spouse: Zachary Taylor (m. 1810 – 1850)
Children: She had 6 children
Offices held:
First Lady of the United States (1849 – 1850)
Facts about Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor
For the first few years of their marriage, Margaret stayed on the farm that her father-in-law had given the couple as a wedding present. No portraits or photographs of Margaret Taylor can be fully authenticated and none are known to exist. A brief description of her personal appearance in 1825, when she was about 37, describes her as “”a fat, motherly looking woman.””
Margaret spent her life as a military wife, moving around the western frontier as Taylor rose in the ranks of the U.S. Army. A semi-invalid, she remained in seclusion on the second floor of the White House, leaving the duties of official hostess to her daughter Mary Elizabeth “”Betty”” Bliss.
A devout Episcopalian, Mrs. Taylor prayed regularly for her soldier husband. Margaret and Zachary’s second daughter, Sarah Knox Taylor, was the first wife of Jefferson Davis, the future president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.
Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor Childhood
Born on a Maryland plantation, Margaret Peggy Mackall Smith was brought up on a successful tobacco farm in Calvert County, Maryland. During childhood she was instructed in all the customary skills of a young 18th-century American woman sewing, embroidery, music and dance and probably received basic tutelage in grammar and mathematics as well, which would help her manage her families itinerant military life later on.
Peggys mother had died before her 10th birthday, and being the youngest of seven children Peggy spent much of her childhood at the nearby estate of her grandparents. When she was 16, her father died and she moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to live with her older sister Mary Anne. It was there that in 1809 the young Margaret Smith was introduced to Lieutenant Zachary Taylor, and after a brief courtship they were wed.
Where is Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor buried?
She was buried next to her husband near Louisville, Kentucky.
How did Margaret Mackall Smith Taylor die?
Margaret “”Peggy”” Taylor died two years after her husband did, on August 14, 1852, at Pascagoula, Mississippi.