Overview
The first known ancestor of the Taft family is Robert Taft, Sr., who was born about 1640 in England and died in 1725 in Mendon, Massachusetts. His wife Sarah was born in England, too; they married in 1668 in Braintree, Massachusetts. Robert Taft, Sr. began a homestead in what is today Uxbridge and was then Mendon, Massachusetts, circa 1680. His son, Robert Taft II, was a member of the founding Board of Selectmen for the new town of Uxbridge in 1727. A branch of the Massachusetts Taft family descended from Daniel Taft, son of Robert Taft, Sr., born at Braintree, 1677–1761, died at Mendon. Daniel, a justice of the peace in Mendon, had a son Josiah Taft, later of Uxbridge, who died in 1756. This branch of the Taft family claims America's first woman voter, Lydia Taft, and five generations of Massachusetts legislators and public servants beginning with Lydia's husband, Josiah Taft. Josiah's widow, Lydia, became "America's first woman voter", when she voted in three Uxbridge town meetings.
The Tafts were very prominently represented as soldiers in the Revolutionary War, mostly in the New England states. Peter Rawson Taft I was born in Uxbridge in 1785 and moved to Townshend, Vermont circa 1800. He became a Vermont state legislator. He died in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio. His son, Alphonso Taft, was born in Townshend, Vermont, and attended Yale University, where he founded the Skull and Bones society. He later was Secretary of War and Attorney General of the United States and the father of President William Howard Taft. Elmshade in Massachusetts was the site of Taft family reunions such as in 1874.
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