Byron B. Taggart – 1880, 1881

Byron Benjamin Taggart was born in the Town of LeRay on April 28, 1831 to Henry and Julina Dighton Taggart. One of eight children, he lived and worked on the family’s farm until he was 18. He was educated in local schools and later taught in those schools while continuing to farm in the summertime. Ambitious to gain a better education, he attended the State Normal School at Albany for one year and then spent three years in the west. He returned to Watertown where he remained until he entered military service during the second year of the Civil War. He organized a company of soldiers and was commissioned a Captain and given command of Fort Ricketts. Ill health and family obligations compelled him to resign in November of 1863.

Returning to Watertown, he began dealing in paper flour sacks, a small business which eventually grew to the much larger Taggart Brothers Company in Watertown and Taggart Paper Company in Felts Mills. He was vice president of the Watertown Thermometer Works and one of the organizers of the Watertown National Bank. He was also one of the trustees of the Soldiers' Home at Bath, NY. Mr. Taggart was a good businessman - paper manufacturer, bank director, corporation and steamboat magnate, landlord, politician and semi-millionaire – and always well regarded in the community. 

Mr. Taggart was elected Mayor of the City of Watertown in November 1879 and re-elected in 1880. His administration of the affairs of the City was marked by a careful discharge of the delicate and numerous duties pertaining to the trying position. He brought a businessman’s experience to the service of the City and left the position with an excellent record. 

He married Frances Brown on May 28, 1856 and they had two daughters, Grace Taggart Dillon and Mary Taggart Tanner, and a son, Byron Brown Taggart. 

Mr. Taggart died at his home on Washington Street in the City of Watertown, January 20, 1897 at the age of 65. He is buried at Brookside Cemetery.