Mendon-Uxbridge Connections To The Ohio Tafts, Presidential Ancestors
President William Howard Taft's grandfather, Peter Rawson Taft I, was born in Uxbridge in 1785 and grew up there. His father Aaron moved to Townshend, Vermont, because of the difficult economy, when he was fifteen. The story is told that Peter Rawson, walked a cow all the way from Uxbridge to Townshend, a distance of well over 100 miles. The "Aaron Taft house" is now on the National Historic Register. Peter Rawson Taft I became a Vermont legislator and eventually died in Hamilton County, Cincinnati, Ohio. Peter Rawson Taft's son, Alphonso Taft, founded Skull and Bones at Yale, served as U.S. Secretary of War, and his son William Howard became the U.S. President. The ancestry of U.S. presidents, traces to Uxbridge and Mendon more than once, including the current U.S. President and Vice President. President Taft, a champion for world peace and the only president to also serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court returned to Uxbridge for family reunions. He remarked as he stepped off the train there on April 3, 1905, "Uxbridge,... I think I have more relatives here than in any town in America". Young William Howard Taft had made other trips to Uxbridge, and Bezaleel Taft, Jr's home, "Elmshade", in his earlier years. It was at "Elmshade" that young William Howard Taft likely heard his father, Alphonso Taft, proudly deliver an oratory on the Taft family history and the family's roots in Uxbridge, and Mendon, circa 1874. President Taft stayed at the Samuel Taft tavern when he visited Uxbridge, as did George Washington 120 years earlier. The New York Times recorded President Taft's visits to his ancestral homes in Mendon and Uxbridge during his Presidency. William Howard Taft, as a young boy, spent a number of summers in the Blackstone Valley in Millbury, Massachusetts, and even attended schools for at least a term in that nearby town.
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