He was named after his godfather, Edward Thornton a friend and fellow student of his father's at Eton College and His Majesty's ambassador to Washington D.C.

He visited all the famous homes and social spots of Virginia, including Monticello, "where he was favored with a gracious conversation by the aging Jefferson."

The careful journal he kept of the 3 years with Poinsett reveals a young, ardent, inquiring and sometimes impatient mind, but also a patient and dispassionate precision and objectivity.

America responded by coining a word of its own, poinsettia, to name the beautiful flowers the diplomatic mission brought back.

Since 1825 he had flooded the fledgling Department of State with recommendations from influential friends, including Poinsett, seeking his appointment to diplomatic service.

Before the party left for Bogota, President Adams was defeated by Andrew Jackson, and the patrician Virginians and New Englanders who had ruled America since its creation were out.

Then an American adventurer in the employ of Bolivar's government saw an opportunity for his own advancement and spread the tale that Harrison and Tayloe had conspired with Cordoba in his attempted coup.

In 1836 he wrote to William Henry Harrison, he remarked concerning the Van Buren presidential campaign, "we can only counteract them by rallying under the banner of States' Rights.

Finally, he moved to "Buena Vista," near Roanoke, where his brother George Plater Tayloe lived in a fine home he had built a few years earlier.

"Unlike his earlier, more literary journal on Mexico, this one is lean and spare, mostly a painstakingly accurate record of crops and rainfall.

Its silence is eloquent as if mere words could no longer serve him as they did when he was young and ready to conquer the world of diplomacy... there is a constant attention to the details of the land: on a three hundred mile ride back to Powhatan Hill to check on the mother plantation and on the homes he'd given his sons, he could write, 'the dogwood is early this year and very beautiful,' and leave it at that."

He worked all his life on behalf of his community, his church, his family and his country, and he cultivated the southern virtue of hospitality toward all, rich and poor alike.

On 30 Oct 1897 Edward's son G. Ogle Tayloe sold the table to Annie Bailey Voorhies, who had family connections.