William Henry Taylor was born around 1838 in Indiana to Robert Taylor and Nancy Lakey. His father was a farmer who owned $4,500 of real estate and $1,200 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Clear Creek, Indiana. He married a woman named Jane, in the late 1850s, and their daughter Sarah was born around 1859. They lived in Clear Creek, and Taylor worked as a farmer. Jane probably died in the 1860s, and he married Margaret Smallwood soon afterward. By 1870, he owned $4,800 of real estate and $1,500 of personal property. Margaret died sometime before 1900. Taylor died of nephrolithiasis in Clear Creek on January 13, 1901.