James Monroe Taylor (August 5, 1848 – December 19, 1916) was a Baptist minister who was the fourth president of Vassar College.

Born in Brooklyn, New York on August 5, 1848, he was educated at the University of Rochester, from which he graduated in 1868.

[1] He went on to study at Rochester Theological Seminary, becoming ordained as a Baptist minister in 1871.

He toured Europe in 1873, and then spent 16 years working as a minister around Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Taylor died of pneumonia in New York City on December 19, 1916, only two years after retiring from Vassar.