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Mount Airy, Richmond County, Virginia

THE PLANTATION HOME OF COLONEL JOHN TAYLOE The purchase for £500 of three thousand acres of productive land in Charles County, on the Potomac, gave a big boost to the fortunes of the Tayloe family of Virginia. This shrewd purchase was made by Colonel John Tayloe, the son of William Tayloe (or Taylor) who came from England in the seventeenth century. William Tayloe was a member of the House of Burgesses in 1710. His son John became a member of the Colonial Council in 1732, while his son John, who was born in 1721, also had the honor of serving in the Council under Lord Dunmore, as well as in the first Republican Council, during the administration of Patrick Henry. He married the sister of Governor George Plater of Maryland. Of his eight daughters one married Richard Lightfoot Lee, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, while another married Colonel William Augustine Washington, a nephew of George Washington, by whom he was educated.