Edwin Taliaferro
Edwin Turner Taliaferro (born July 25, 1849 in Paris, Tennessee; died July 22, 1919) was an attorney and partner with A. O. Lane and B. H. Tabor in the firm of Lane, Taliaferro & Tabor with offices in the Roden Building.
Taliaferro was the son of Edwin Turner and Jane B. (Pope) Taliaferro of King William County, Virginia. His father, a physician, moved the family to Madison County, Alabama in 1866. Young Edwin attended Manchester College in Tennessee and began reading law at the office of former Governor John C. Brown in Pulaski. He taught school before being admitted to the bar in 1871, soon partnering with Major B. F. Matthews and later with John T. Allen.
Taliaferro married Evie Sloss, daughter of James Sloss on October 13, 1874.
Taliaferro was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1876 and was made speaker of the house. He was an elector from Tennessee for Winfield Hancock in the 1880 general election. In 1883 he moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas where he met B. H. Tabor. They separately moved to Birmingham in 1885 and joined with A. O. Lane in a practice specializing in corporate matters.
Taliaferro represented the Alabama National Bank, the Sloss Furnace Company, the Birmingham Iron Works and other large businesses. He acquired significant real estate holdings.
In 1892 Taliaferro moved to New York City. He died in 1919 and is buried at the Maplewood Cemetery in Pulaski, Tennessee.
References
- Dubose, John Witherspoon (1887) Jefferson County and Birmingham, Alabama: Historical and Biographical Birmingham: Teeple & Smith, Publishers; Caldwell Printing Works.
- Cruikshank, George H. (1920) History of Birmingham and Its Environs: A Narrative Account of Their Historical Progress, Their People, and Their Principal Interests 2 volumes. Chicago, Illinois: Lewis Publishing Company. - via Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections