Related to a Traitor? 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “Possibilities”

 

Was Philip Taylor the Nephew of Benedict Arnold?

Hannah Arnold: 1742-1803
Philip Taylor: 1757-1820 (Maternal 5^th Great-Grandfather)
Patience Taylor Archibald: 1800-1834 (Maternal Fourth Great-Grandmother)
Nancy Archibald: 1821-1912 (Maternal Third-Great-Grandmother)

 

I was surprised to receive a notice from Ancestry claiming that Benedict Arnold, infamous Revolutionary War traitor, was my husband’s 6^th Great-Granduncle. With the 250^th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approaching, I decided it was an appropriate time to investigate this possible connection to a major figure in the Revolutionary War.

Benedict Arnold

According to the lineage line Ancestry provided, my husband’s third-great-grandmother, Nancy Archibald, was the daughter of Patience Taylor, who had married John Archibald in Daviess County, Kentucky in 1820.

Patience was the daughter of Philip Taylor and his wife Mary Welsher. Patience was born in 1800 in Daviess County, Kentucky, and died in 1834.

Patience Taylor Archibald Headstone, Nalley-Taylor Family Cemetery in Buel KY

Philip Taylor, Patience's father and my husband’s 5^th Great-Grandfather, was born in 1757 in Springfield, Pennsylvania. During the Revolutionary War, he served in the 5^th Battalion of the Pennsylvania Continental Line. His grave marker notes his service. Following the war, he moved to Kentucky and first married Hannah Atherton, and following her death, married Mary Welsher in 1799. Philip died in 1829.

Philip Taylor Headstone, Nalley-Taylor Family Cemetery in Buel KY

The next question is who were Philip Taylor’s parents? And that is where the connection to Benedict Arnold starts to fray.

According to the Ancestry chart I included above, Philip’s parents were Henry Taylor and Hannah Arnold. The chart shows that Hannah’s parents were Benedict Arnold and wife Hannah Waterman. Benedict and Hannah’s oldest son was named Benedict as well; Major General Benedict Arnold was born in 1741, and his sister Hannah the following year, 1742.

There are several immediate problems with Philip Taylor’s supposed parentage. First, Benedict and Hannah Arnold were born and raised in Connecticut, not Pennsylvania. How would she have met Philip’s father?

Second, and more importantly, historic records are quite clear that Benedict Arnold’s sister, Hannah, never married. She kept house for her brother until his marriage to Margaret Mansfield in 1767, and then Hannah remained in the household to help with their three children. Following Margaret’s death, Hannah served as the children’s surrogate mother. She died in Montague, Ontario in 1803, where she was living with Henry Arnold, one of Benedict’s sons.

So how did this error come about? It appears there was another man named Benedict Arnold living in Middletown, Connecticut, married to a woman named Mary. They appear in church records as parents of children Hannah, baptized in 1740; Fenner, baptized in 1738; and Patience, baptized in 1739. However, I can find no record that this other Hannah Arnold was married to a man named Taylor. I had even attached a document written by another Ancestry user titled “Hannah Arnold Could Not Have Been the Mother of Philip Taylor Born Abt 1757 in Pennsylvania!!!” Why hadn’t I paid more attention to that at the time I first read it? The author of the document fails to provide any real proof one way or the other.

Philip Taylor’s true parentage remains murky. I looked at records on FamilySearch, and his profile shows his father as Henry Taylor of New Jersey and a Mary Dupuy from “British Colonies”—not very specific. The only records attached to Mary Dupuy are birth records of children born in Philadelphia that lack documentation. Henry Taylor died in New Jersey; there is no proof that he ever left the state or had any children born in Pennsylvania. I am not prepared to accept these people as Philip’s parents; there are too many details that do not seem to fit.

Philip Taylor’s Findagrave entry has a note stating: “Phillip, Benjamin, and Arnold were brothers, their father was Henry Taylor.” I was able to find another Findagrave entry for Benjamin Taylor in the same area of Kentucky. He too apparently served in the Revolution and was born in 1756, a year before Philip. I have found no record of a brother Arnold. Philip did name two of his sons Benjamin and Arnold, so he might have been naming them in honor of his brothers. Without further evidence, however, these relationships are all hypothetical.

What I can confirm is that there is no possibility that my husband’s 5^th great-grandfather Philip Taylor is Benedict Arnold’s nephew. Thankfully, Philip Taylor was not related to a traitor; instead he was a patriot and served honorably as a private in the Revolutionary War.

Perhaps someday I will find records that prove who Philip Taylor’s parents were. In the meantime, I have made sure to remove the Arnolds from our family tree.

 

Sources:

Findagrave entries for Philip Taylor, Patience Taylor, Benjamin Taylor. https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2530369/memorial-search?cemeteryName=Nalley-Taylor+Family+Cemetery&page=1#sr-125151072

Kentucky Marriages, 1802-1850. Author Dodd, Jordan. Ancestry.com.

Kentucky, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1783-1965. Ancestry.com.

Pennsylvania, U.S., Revolutionary War Battalions and Militia Index, 1775-1783. Philip Taylor. Ancestry.com.