Robert Barraud Taylor (1774–1834), attorney, public official, and soldier, was a lifelong resident of Norfolk. He attended the College of William and Mary early in the 1790s and then embarked on a successful legal career. Taylor sat in the Virginia House of Delegates, 1799–1801 and 1826–27, and he represented a district including Norfolk at the state’s 1829–30 constitutional convention but resigned before casting a vote. A grand juror at Aaron Burr’s 1807 treason trial, he served during the War of 1812 as a brigadier general of militia charged with defending the region around Norfolk from British incursions. Taylor was also a member of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors, 1819–22, and a circuit court judge, 1831–34 (William and Mary Provisional List description begins A Provisional List of Alumni, Grammar School Students, Members of the Faculty, and Members of the Board of Visitors of the College of William and Mary in Virginia. From 1693 to 1888, 1941 description ends , 39; Leonard, General Assembly description begins Cynthia Miller Leonard, comp., The General Assembly of Virginia, July 30, 1619–January 11, 1978: A Bicentennial Register of Members, 1978 description ends , 216, 220, 335, 354; The Trial of Col. Aaron Burr, on an indictment for Treason [Washington, 1807–08], 1:12; Butler, Virginia Militia description begins Stuart Lee Butler, A Guide to Virginia Militia Units in the War of 1812, 1988 description ends , 16, 18, 20, 310; Minutes of University of Virginia Board of Visitors, 7 Oct. 1822; Richmond Enquirer, 3 May 1831, 18 Apr. 1834; Norfolk City Will Book, 5:343; gravestone inscription in Cedar Grove Cemetery, Norfolk).

A likeness of Taylor is reproduced elsewhere in this volume.