Isaac Montrose Taylor was born in New Bern (Craven County) on October 29, 1857. He moved to Morganton (Burke County) in 1884, where he served as an assistant physician for the state mental hospital for seventeen years. He also served as director of the Broadoaks Sanitarium, another mental hospital in Morganton, for twenty years. He died in Morganton on November 26, 1921.