Arter Taylor was the youngest of sixteen children, and was raised in South Carolina. In the fall of 1831, he visited some relatives, on Duck river, in Tennessee, and from that place, in company with his brother, Dick Taylor, came on to Illinois, reaching Madison county in October, 1831. In the spring of 1832, he volunteered in the Black Hawk war, took part in the campaign of that summer, and returned to Madison county in the fall, thence went back to South Carolina. In the spring of 1835, he returned to Illinois, in company with his nephew, Randall Clark. He staid at Bloomington from April to August, and then came to Gillespie township, where his sister, Nancy, mother of the wife of Giles M. Adams, was then living. He was farming in section twenty till 1837, and then moved to the place where now lives. He was married February 13, 1836, to Sarah Ann Rose, who was born in the year 1814, near Frenchtown, Hunterdon county, New Jersey. He went to California in 1849 among the first emigrants to the Pacific Coast, was mining gold, and returned to Illinois in January, 1851.

Mr. and Mrs. Taylor have seven children living, five boys and two girls. He has always been a democrat in politics. He is now one of the old settlers of the county, and has seen many changes take place during the forty-four years he has lived in it.