John Taylor was born into slavery in Kentucky and was freed by Union troops during the Civil War. In August 1864, he enlisted in the 1st Michigan Colored Infantry. After the war he worked for farmer John Buck in Delhi Township, and when he left to seek other employment, Buck refused to pay him for his work. On the night of August 23, 1866, Taylor returned to the farm to collect his wages. Buck was absent, but Taylor encountered Buck’s wife, daughter, and mother-in-law in the dark, struck at them with an axe, and fled. No one was seriously injured, but newspapers reported that he had murdered Buck’s daughter and tried to kill all three women. Some accounts said Taylor confessed that he acted “in his fright and confusion,” with no intent to kill anyone. He was captured and placed in the Ingham County Jail in Mason to await trial, but on August 27, 1866, after inaccurate reports of a supposed triple-murder attempt, a mob seized the teenaged Taylor from his cell and brutally lynched him near Mason’s railroad depot. Several local papers condemned the lynching as inhumane and lawless, while others excused it by saying the law would have been too lenient. Citizens of Mason passed a resolution condemning the killing and formally disclaiming any participation in it. A mob leader was tried and acquitted. Taylor was buried and likely reburied somewhere along the hogsback, a glacial esker between Mason and Holt. The park later known as Deadman’s Hill was probably not his final resting place; Delhi Charter Township acquired the park by donation in 1972, and it was renamed John Taylor Memorial Park in 2018.