James Taylor was a Black man born on January 3, 1888 in Boston, Massachusetts to Howard and Mildred Taylor. Mr. Taylor remained in Boston as an adult and worked as a cook. He married Anna J. Fletcher of Boston on February 25, 1907, and the pair had two children.
Mr. Taylor died while incarcerated at the Massachusetts State Prison on October 10, 1918, of influenza and pneumonia, at 30.