Robert Robinson Taylor – Wilmington, NC - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

Robert Robinson Taylor was born in Wilmington, NC in 1868 just a few years after the end of the Civil War. His father was a former slave who had been freed in 1847. Desiring to pursue a career in architecture, Taylor attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has the distinction of being the first black student enrolled at that school.

While still at MIT, Robert R. Taylor was approached by Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, who wanted to recruit Taylor to design buildings for Tuskegee’s campus and help establish an Industrial arts program for the school. Thus began a 40-year association between Robert R. Taylor and Tuskegee Institute which culminated in Taylor being named vice-principal in 1925.

Robert R. Taylor designed all kinds of buildings for Tuskegee: dormitories, science halls, administrative buildings, classrooms and laboratories, the chapel (which he considered is best effort), faculty residences and a hospital. He also designed buildings for other colleges and some non-educational facilities.

On December 13, 1942, Robert R. Taylor collapsed while attending a service at the Tuskegee chapel. He was brought to the John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital (also on the Tuskegee campus) where he died later that same day. Both the chapel and the hospital were buildings he had designed.

Robert Robinson Taylor received numerous awards and citations during and after his lifetime, including being honored on a U.S. postage stamp issued in 2015.

Description: As his headstone reads, Robert R. Taylor was born on June 8, 1868. In 1898 he married Beatrice Rochon, also an instructor at Tuskegee, with whom he had four children. Several years after his wife’s untimely death in 1902, Taylor married Nellie Chesnutt, another teacher, with whom he had one child and who is laid to rest beside him here at Pine Forest Cemetery. The tombstone also includes a partial quote from the Book of Psalms: “…he giveth his beloved sleep.” This Psalm also includes the line “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it…,” no doubt a favorite of Taylor’s. (Sources: MIT Black History Project, Encyclopedia of Alabama.) Date of birth: 06/08/1868 Date of death: 12/13/1942 Area of notoriety: Education Marker Type: Headstone Setting: Outdoor Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link] Visiting Hours/Restrictions: Not listed

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