List of people from Taunton, Massachusetts

The following is a list of notable people from Taunton, Massachusetts, USA. These individuals were born in Taunton, were long-time residents of the city, or were buried within the city limits.

Richard De Wert, U.S. soldier, Medal of Honor recipient

• Isaac Babbitt (1799-1862) – inventor, manufactured the first tableware made of Britannia metal; made the first brass cannon cast in the U.S.; patented the Babbitt metal
• Michael Fernandes — Musician, radio station owner, recording studio owner (Graduated THS 2005)
• Joseph C. Chamberlain (1896-1965) — mayor of Taunton, 1954-1960
• Mary Christian (1889-2003) — recognized as the oldest living American, born in Taunton
• David Cobb (1748-1830) – State court judge in Massachusetts, 1784; member of Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1789; U.S. Representative from Massachusetts 3rd District, 1793-1795; member of Massachusetts Senate, 1802; lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, 1809-1810
• Darius N. Couch (1822-1897) – U.S. Army officer, naturalist, and an Union army general in the American Civil War
• Samuel Leonard Crocker (1804-1883) – politician; U.S. Representative from Massachusetts 2nd District, 1853-1855
• Charles Crowley (1954-2014), City Councilor (1988-2007) Mayor of Taunton (2007-2012), local historian and author, TV producer and host of Olde Tyme Taunton
• Stephanie Cutter (1968-present) — Deputy Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama
• Richard De Wert (1931-1951) – soldier (Korean War), Medal of Honor recipient; a guided missile frigate, the USS De Wert was named in honor of his heroics
• Eric DeCosta – director of player personnel for the Baltimore Ravens (2003-present)
• Shane Padraig Duffy - Iraqi war Hero
• John E. Fitzgerald — politician; delegate to Democratic National Convention from Massachusetts, 1940
• Joseph Flood (1916-1991) — Mayor of Taunton, 1970-1972; City Assessor 1941-1969
• William Z. Foster (1881-1961) – American Communist Party's presidential candidate in 1924, 1928, and 1932; also, party chairman from 1945 to 1956
• Alan Gifford (1911-1989) – actor
• James Leonard Hodges (1790-1846) – politician; member of Massachusetts General Court; U.S. Representative from Massachusetts 12th District, 1827-1833
• James Frederick Jackson (1851-1937) – lawyer; mayor of Fall River, 1890-1891; Congregationalist; member of the American Bar Association
• Leon Kamin (1927-) – psychologist, co-authored the book Not in Our Genes (1974)
• William Standish Knowles (1917-) – chemist, 2001 Nobel Prize laureate winner in Chemistry for his and his colleagues' work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions
• Steven Laffoley (1965-) – author of creative-nonfiction and fiction works, including the award-winning Shadowboxing: the Rise and Fall of George Dixon (2012)
• Robert Milton Leach (1879-1952) — politician; U.S. Representative from Massachusetts 15th District, 1924-1925; alternate delegate to Republican National Convention from Massachusetts, 1928
• Elsa Lorimer (1891-1967) – film actress
• William Croad Lovering (1835-1910) – politician; Member of Massachusetts Senate, 1874-1875; delegate to Republican National Convention from Massachusetts, 1880; U.S. Representative from Massachusetts, 1897-1910 (12th District 1897-1903, 14th District 1903-1910); died in office in 1910
• Paul Mackendrick (1914-1998) – author, author of archaeological books The Mute Stones Speak (1960), The Greek Stones Speak (1962), Roman France (1972), The Dacian Stones Speak (1975), and The North African Stones Speak (1980)
• William Mason (1808-1883) – engine builder; machinist; manufacturer of locomotives and cotton machinery; pioneer in the building of locomotives; patented the "self-acting mule" and "Mason's Self-acting Mule," founder of the Mason Machine Works in 1873; built engine that carried Abraham Lincoln to his grave
• Barry McCaffrey (1942-) – military officer, politician, youngest 4-star general in the army at any time, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) under President Bill Clinton (1996-2001), drug czar
• Edward L. McGuire, Jr. (1914-1983) — decorated bomber pilot in World War II, businessman and politician in Shreveport, Louisiana, born in Taunton
• Catherine Anna McKenna (b. 1875) – lawyer; first woman admitted to practice law in California ^[1]
• Rachel Morse – politician; alternate delegate to Republican National Convention from Massachusetts, 1924, 1940; presumed deceased
• Marcus Morton (1784-1864) – lawyer, jurist, politician, U.S. House member (Massachusetts), Governor of Massachusetts (two terms)
• Joseph P. Murphy — politician; delegate to the Democratic National Convention from Massachusetts, 1936; presumed deceased
• Mary I. Murphy — politician; delegate to Democratic National Convention from Massachusetts, 1940, 1944
• Robert G. Nunes – longest-serving mayor of Taunton, Director of Municipal Affairs (Commonwealth of Massachusetts)
• O'Brien, Gordon (c. 1947-) – career criminal; associate of the Providence-based Patriarca crime family; involved in the failed kidnapping of bookmaker Blaise Marfeo in 1990
• Basil O'Connor (1892-1972); lawyer and aide of Franklin D. Roosevelt; President of the American Red Cross; Chairman of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
• John E. O'Hearn – politician; alternate delegate to the Democratic National Convention from Massachusetts, 1924, 1928; presumed deceased
• Eileen M. Orsi-Stanger (1925-1991) – Harvard graduate and General Electric executive
• Marc R. Pacheco — politician; presidential elector for Massachusetts, 1996; delegate to Democratic National Convention from Massachusetts, 2000, 2004
• Seth Padelford (1807-1878) – politician; lieutenant governor of Rhode Island, 1863-1865; presidential elector for Rhode Island, 1868; governor of Rhode Island, 1869-1873

Robert Treat Paine, signer of the Declaration of Independence

• Robert Treat Paine (1731-1814) – politician; Supreme Court Judge of Massachusetts (1796-1804); signer of the Declaration of Independence
• John F. Parker — Mayor of Taunton, 1953
• Emily Elizabeth Parsons — Writer; Civil War nurse; founder of Mt. Auburn Hospital in Massachusetts
• Nicholas Pedro – contestant on Season 6 of American Idol
• Arthur E. Poole — Mayor of Taunton, 1937; presumed deceased
• Elizabeth Poole (d. 1664) – English woman, Puritan, foundress of the present-day city of Taunton, and the first woman to have founded a town in the Americas in 1637
• Captain William Poole – English captain, acted as senior officer of the fleet, served in the Restoration navy; commanded the English war ships Charity (1661), Advice (1663), St. George (1665), Mary (1666), Crown (1667), Jersey (1669), Plymouth (1672), Leopard (1676), Happy Return (1678), Samuel and Mary (1685)
• John "Beans" Reardon (1897-1984) – film actor, Major League Baseball umpire, officiated in five World Series games
• Manuel C. Rosa (1898- ) – U.S. patent lawyer; former U.S. Department of Commerce patent law attorney; developed a classification of organic compounds still presently used
• Shevonne Sullivan – television personality on TMZ, graduated Taunton High School in 2002
• Sterry Robinson Waterman (1901-1984) – Lawyer; delegate to Republican National Convention from Vermont, 1936; Judge of U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, 1955-1970; member of American Bar Association and American Judicature Society
• John E. Welch – politician; alternate delegate to Democratic National Convention from Massachusetts, 1932; presumed deceased
• Henry Williams (1805-1887) — politician; member of Massachusetts state legislature; U.S. Representative from Massachusetts, 1839-1841, 1843-1845 (10th District 1839-1841, 9th District 1843-1845)
• Louise M. Williams — politician; delegate to Republican National Convention from Massachusetts, 1928 (alternate), 1944; member of Republican National Committee from Massachusetts, 1940; presumed deceased

References

1. Bates, Joseph Clement (1912). History of the Bench and Bar of California (Public domain ed.). Bench and Bar Publishing Company. p. 413.