Taylor was born on January 11, 1825,^[1] in Kennett Square in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth son, first to live to maturity, of Joseph and Rebecca (nee Way) Taylor.^[2] His father was a well-to-do farmer and young Bayard received his early instruction in an academy at West Chester, and later at Unionville. At the age of seventeen he was apprenticed to a printer in West Chester. His interest in poetry was coached by influential critic and editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold, who encouraged him to produce a volume of poetry. Published at Philadelphia in 1844 under the title Ximena, or the Battle of the Sierra Morena, and other Poems was dedicated to Griswold,^[3] though it brought its author little profit; and indirectly it did him better service as the means of his introduction to The New York Tribune.