Walker Taylor was born in Marion, South Carolina on October 26, 1864. A longtime resident of Wilmington (New Hanover County), Taylor was a banker, businessman, and onetime U.S. Collector of Customs. Taylor was a leading conspirator in the 1898 Wilmington Coup, a white supremacist movement that overthrew city government at gunpoint and murdered dozens of Black citizens. He additionally served as a member of a committee charged with overseeing relief funds for Western North Carolina survivors of the 1916 flood. He died in Wilmington on August 10, 1937.