Through the first third of the 1850s, with the exception of whatever condors may have been acquired by Indians for their social and religious needs, no one was specifically seeking condors. Explorers and naturalists killed condors randomly and opportunistically, in the same way they collected other specimens of fauna or flora they encountered. Early miners, ranchers and homesteaders shot condors not because they were condors, but because they were big and made good targets, or because they were big and curiosity demanded a closer look. In the 1850s in Monterey, California, the first two true "condor people" emerged, Alexander Smith Taylor and Colbert Austin Canfield. Chapter 8 will be devoted to Canfield.
Taylor, born in Charleston, South Carolina 16 April 1817, son of Alexander Taylor and Mary Chapman, was first on the scene. Neither historians nor genealogists have been able to find much information about the Taylor family. Two Alexander Taylors had emigrated from Scotland, and were naturalized in Charleston in the 1790s [1]; perhaps these were our Alexander's father and grandfather? His father gained some fame in the War of 1812 when his privateer Saucy Jack captured a major British cargo ship, Pelham, and Taylor was named prize master [2]. The father reportedly died in 1821 [3]. Almost the total of what is known about Alexander's first thirty years of life was given by him in one long sentence in a letter he wrote to the American Antiquarian Society 22 July 1866:
"I left my native city of Charleston, So. Carolina, in 1837 (only returning for a few days in 1839), when in my 21st year, and since that time have wandered over the West Indies, England, India, the Red Sea, China, Singapore and Ceylon" [4].
What he did in those places, and how he made a living, remains unknown. Finally, on the brig Pacific, coming from Hong Kong, he landed at Monterey 8 September 1848 [5]. He lived at Monterey until 1860, then relocated to Santa Barbara, California. There he married Josepha Hill (daughter of Daniel Hill and Rafaela Olivera de Ortega), sired at least six children, and died 27 July 1876 [3, 5, 6].
If it's possible for a person to be both well-known and unknown, Alexander S. Taylor fills the bill. Other than in the works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, his name is nearly absent from early histories and biographies of coastal California. His occupation in the 1850 census was given as "physician" (hence, "Dr. Taylor"), but no record has been found that says he actually practiced medicine. The 1860 census labeled him a "druggist;" again, no details. In Santa Barbara, he called himself a farmer, but based on what is known of his living conditions there [7], any agricultural efforts were likely minimal. The only certain paying job that can be documented for him was as a clerk in the U. S. District Court at Monterey [8]. He ran for office once (Monterey County treasurer) [9], but there is no indication that he was elected.
Sharply contrasting with his little-known private life, for many he was the voice of the west coast of North America in the 1850s and 1860s. He wrote for newspapers; he corresponded with scientists, historians and politicians. He gathered information on Indians, on the Spanish and Mexican periods of California history, on agricultural history, and on geography. He sent natural history specimens to England and to the museums of the eastern United States. He was one of the organizers of the first California historical society [10], was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society, and was made an Honorary Member of the California Academy of Sciences [11]. There were no limits to his interests [12]. One result of this shotgun approach to life and learning was that he became the first widely-quoted "authority" on the California condor.
Apparently, Taylor's first communication about California condors came in 1852, when he wrote a brief description of a condor killed near Monterey [13]. (In 1851, a letter he wrote to England about the animals of California mentioned "the red-headed buzzard" - likely, the turkey vulture - but not the condor [14].) He followed with a newspaper series in "The California Farmer and Journal of Useful Science," covering the California condor, Andean condor, and king vulture [15]. The California condor information was then gathered together, supplemented by other articles and new observations, and brought out as a new series in "The Overland Monthly" [16]. Parts of his writings were republished widely in other newspapers, in books on birds and natural history, and even in scientific journals.
Hubert Howe Bancroft, the renowned California historian, called Alexander Taylor "a literary and historical dabster," who "knew much; but credit was given him for knowing much more than he did know" [17].
"[It was] as an investigator and writer on the ethnography, bibliography, and history of Cal. that he deserves particular notice; and in these respects he was a remarkable man. Without having any special aptitude by nature or education for such work, he developed a fondness for it almost amounting to a mania. His zeal in face of the most discouraging obstacles is worthy of all praise, though it must be confessed that the result was wellnigh valueless. He was not content with being a collector or even translator and narrator, but had a most unfortunate passion for working the results of his observations and study into what he regarded as a scientific form, the result being too often an absurd jumble of bad Spanish, worse Latin, and unintelligible affectations" [18].
Few matched Bancroft's style of criticism that sliced to the bone but, unfortunately, agreement was general that Taylor's work was prodigious but mostly of little usefulness [19]. Interestingly, one modern-day reviewer believed the "'The Great Condor of California' was a careful study in natural history, and is yet of considerable value" [20]. Oh, if that was only true! Actually, Taylor's writings on condors are the same hodgepodge of fact and fancy that characterized most of his work. He shares with the botanist David Douglas honors for introducing a most amazing amount of nonsense into the early record of condors [21].
Take for example Taylor's comments on condor feeding habits: "It [the condor] is particularly fond of fish, and is often found on the sea-shore watching for fish thrown on the beach, or even steals from the Indians when catching salmon and mountain trout in the lakes and rivers of the Great Plains and of the Coast. A dead whale thrown ashore is sure to bring some of them in sight, and a hunter killing a deer in the mountains is confident of their appearance as soon as the beast is wounded. They are also said to attack wounded deer and other animals, and kill them, and sometimes carry off alive smaller creatures. They are also stated to carry off fish caught in river, sea and lake shallows; and though they will eat dead meat, they will not, like a buzzard, eat carrion - but the last is a mistake" [22].
Also: "A friend of ours engaged in the cattle trade, informs us, that in going from the Mission of Santa Clara towards San Francisco, in 1850, he accidentally dropped a quarter of fat beef from his cart, while a number of the Condor were in sight. On discovering his loss, after a few minutes, he turned back and observed the Condor in numbers, which he estimated at over three hundred, hovering over and near his lost beef. On coming up with it, he was surprised to find that the fat and kidneys of the quarter, with all the inner meat, had completely cleaned off the bones, and the piece of meat had lost more than half its weight" [23].
He further stated that California condors have a clutch of two eggs; lay their eggs in old nests of hawks and eagles; and are frequently captured and pitted against bears and dogs (not witnessed by Taylor, or anyone else that I can find). Despite his personal knowledge that condors do not lay jet-black eggs, he repeated Douglas' outlandish information without comment. Amazingly - or so it seems, today - many of these "facts" were quoted in the work of some of the leading ornithologists of Europe and the United States [24].
Bird study didn't seem to be one of Taylor's strongest interests. I've only been able to find one article he wrote on a bird - the roadrunner - that wasn't a vulture [25]. Although it appears that he personally collected invertebrates, reptiles and small mammals on occasion, there is no evidence that he shot any birds. I have wondered how his interest in condors developed, and how he came to send seven California condor and three turkey vulture specimens to England (the only bird specimens I have found that are attributed to him). The answer seems to rest in his long-time friendship with John Henry Gurney.
Gurney (1819-1890), renowned for his collection of raptorial bird specimens at England's Norwich Museum, in 1851 published some notes on California wildlife that he had received "from a friend of mine, who is resident at Monterey" [26]. The friend was not named, but the writing style is clearly Alexander Taylor's. "Friend" could have been merely a form of address for a correspondent, but I think the evidence is good that Gurney and Taylor actually were friends. Taylor, who was only two years older than Gurney, wrote that he left South Carolina in 1837, sailed to the West Indies, returned home briefly in 1839, and then traveled to England [27]. Gurney's father, Joseph John Gurney, toured through the eastern United States and Canada 1837-1840, visiting various establishments of the Society of Friends. Before returning to England, he sailed to the West Indies and visited a number of islands, then returned to the United States before sailing home. "Accompanied by his young friend Alexander S. Taylor, Joseph John Gurney embarked on board the 'Roscius,' on the twenty-sixth of the seventh month [July 1840]" [28]. I have found no details of what brought Alexander and Joseph together, but a subsequent meeting between Alexander Taylor and Joseph's son John seems inevitable. When Taylor "discovered" the condor, and Gurney began to build his collection of raptorial birds into the largest in the world, they would have developed a clear mutual interest.
Taylor probably sent Gurney his first California condor in early 1853; this is also the year that Gurney reportedly began to actively build his "bird of prey" collection [29]. One story is that Gurney had no special interest in raptors when he began to stock the Norwich Museum, but fate stepped in with the auctioning off of the Zoological Society of London's museum collection. Gurney sent an agent to the sales "with some money to buy a selection of the birds for the Norwich Museum. The sale commenced in scientific sequence with the Accipitres, and the agent bid with diligent persistence until all his money was gone, with the result that he bought only Birds of Prey. With this foundation Gurney determined to devote himself to a special study of these birds, and made the collection of Accipitres at Norwich the most famous in the world" [30]. Whether or not the story is true, it is true that Gurney put the major share of his efforts into the raptor collection, and by his death it had grown to include almost 5000 specimens, representing almost 600 species or subspecies [31].
Only one of the Taylor-Gurney condors remains at Norwich today, the skeleton of one of the first two birds obtained by Taylor [32]. The others, including the first California condor egg and the first nestling ever collected [33], are now in the Natural History Museum (Tring, U.K.). Two condors were transferred in an exchange before 1874 [34]; the rest came in the 1950s [35]. From Taylor's newspaper stories it is possible to identify approximately when condors were killed. Unfortunately, no specific collection data accompany the specimens, so one can only guess at which bird goes with which news story, based mainly on age or sex. Given that Gurney reportedly "did not care much for duplicates at any time unless they were from different countries" [36], one could speculate that the first two condors exchanged out of the collection were the last two that Taylor sent to him. Alas, we will probably never know.