Taylor Family Burying Ground
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Taylor Family Burying Ground

Also known as Faucett Family Burying Ground

Westtown, Chester County, Pennsylvania, USA

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  • Get directions Westtown, Pennsylvania, USA
    Coordinates: 39.92925, -75.57015
  • This cemetery is marked as being historical or removed.
  • No longer accepting burials
  • Cemetery ID:

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This cemetery was initially the burying ground of the Taylor family, who founded it in the early part of the 18th century on land owned by Phillip Taylor, a few hundred yards from a stone house built by the family ca. 1722. It was officially laid out in the will of Thomas Taylor Jr., who described it as:


"The burying ground on my place, being 12 feet one way and 3 perches and 4 feet the other, to be reserved as a burying place forever."


Local legend has it that hundreds of soldiers who fell at the Battle of the Brandywine in 1777 are buried here, though no documentary evidence has been found to corroborate this story.


Early in its history it was opened to any local family who wished to be buried there. Members of the Faucett family, who owned land nearby, were buried there in great number, and it is someties referred to as the Faucett Burying Ground.


It accepted burials until about 1876, when it became impossible to bury anyone without disturbing older graves.


Once surrounded by a stone wall and gate, it fell to ruin by the late 19th century. By 1905, only several stones were still visible.


According to the late Westtown farmer Marshall Jones, a resident of the area for over 70 years, the markers from the graveyard were removed during the 1920s or 1930s to be used as steps for the old house nearby. That house was demolished after 1980, with one of those headstones being saved by a West Chester University professor who studied the site.


A marker erected by the Taylor family in 2001 does not mark the cemetery grounds, but stands in an area that is publicly accessible.













This cemetery was initially the burying ground of the Taylor family, who founded it in the early part of the 18th century on land owned by Phillip Taylor, a few hundred yards from a stone house built by the family ca. 1722. It was officially laid out in the will of Thomas Taylor Jr., who described it as:


"The burying ground on my place, being 12 feet one way and 3 perches and 4 feet the other, to be reserved as a burying place forever."


Local legend has it that hundreds of soldiers who fell at the Battle of the Brandywine in 1777 are buried here, though no documentary evidence has been found to corroborate this story.


Early in its history it was opened to any local family who wished to be buried there. Members of the Faucett family, who owned land nearby, were buried there in great number, and it is someties referred to as the Faucett Burying Ground.


It accepted burials until about 1876, when it became impossible to bury anyone without disturbing older graves.


Once surrounded by a stone wall and gate, it fell to ruin by the late 19th century. By 1905, only several stones were still visible.


According to the late Westtown farmer Marshall Jones, a resident of the area for over 70 years, the markers from the graveyard were removed during the 1920s or 1930s to be used as steps for the old house nearby. That house was demolished after 1980, with one of those headstones being saved by a West Chester University professor who studied the site.


A marker erected by the Taylor family in 2001 does not mark the cemetery grounds, but stands in an area that is publicly accessible.













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  • Added: 26 Feb 2011
  • Find a Grave Cemetery ID: 2390686