Nelly Evans was a free woman of color who was born in Lunenburg, Virginia in about 1762. In about 1764 she and her family moved to Granville County, North Carolina. On January 1, 1778 she married William Taburn in nearby Bute County, North Carolina. While she was married, her husband William Taburn went on three separate tours of service with both the Continental Army and the North Carolina Militia, being away for a total of ten months and ten days throughout the course of the war. In her husband's absence, Nelly Taburn cared for the couple's children, raised the crops, and managed their homestead of 150 acres on Fishing Creek in Granville County.

Nelly Taburn likely suffered many hardships as she aged. By the time William Taburn applied for a pension, he was "almost blind" and living in the county poorhouse, meaning that Nelly Taburn was unable to rely on him for support. After her husband died in February 1835, she never remarried. She later resided in Warren County, North Carolina, where she applied for a widow's pension based on her husband's military service in 1845. Later that year she was issued a pension of $31.10 per year from February 1835 to the time of her death. During this period she likely lived with one of her adult children, as she does not appear on the 1840 census as a head of household. She died in Warren County in about 1846.