Alameda County Biographies

DR. WILLIAM STEWART TAYLOR

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

The subject of this biography was born June 24, 1847, in Saltsburgh, Indiana 
County, Pennsylvania.  His parents and grandparents were natives of Pennsylvania 
and Virginia, of Scotch-Irish parentage.  During his boyhood his father was 
engaged in the mercantile business, but this being foreign to the aspirations of 
the son, he was kept more or less regularly at school, with a view of studying 
theology.  But maturer years, with a better judgment, led him to choose an 
occupation requiring less eloquence.  At the age of twenty, leaving school, he 
engaged in the service of a civil engineer, on the Southwestern Railroad, in 
Tennessee, then under construction, where he remained nearly a year, when the 
railroad company failed financially and suspended operations.  Having a desire 
to follow the business, he sought employment elsewhere, but failing to find a 
position for immediate employment, he returned home and resumed his studies, 
continuing at the same, with the exception of one year, when he was employed as 
Principal of the public school in his native town, then of about one thousand 
inhabitants, until the spring of 1871, at the age of twenty-four, when he began 
the study of medicine, under the care of Dr. J. L. Crawford.  He attended 
medical lectures during the sessions of 1871-72 and a portion of 1873, at Ann 
Arbor, Michigan.  In the spring of 1872 he was married to Miss Martha E. Dickie, 
of a neighboring county.  After studying and practicing under the supervision of 
his preceptor during the summer of 1873, he went to Philadelphia, where he 
graduated from Jefferson Medical College on March 11, 1874.  He at once entered 
into partnership with his preceptor, which, however, was of brief duration, 
owing to the latter engaging in politics, and leaving the newly-fledged Doctor 
to his practice.  After a year�s practice he found it necessary to relinquish a 
good and flattering introduction to practice, for a less vigorous climate.  
Consequently, in the spring of 1875, he came to San Francisco, locating on the 
corner of Sixth and Harrison Streets, where he remained until September 1st, 
when he returned to Pennsylvania on account of family sickness.  Remaining at 
home a short time, he went to New York and Brooklyn, where he remained until 
June, taking special instructions in medicine.  In June of this, the Centennial 
Year, at the public commencement of Washington and Jefferson College, the degree 
of Master of Arts was conferred upon him.  In the early fall of 1876, with his 
wife and son, he returned to San Francisco.  Finding his old corner taken, and 
with a family, and a somewhat depleted pocket-book he sought a field offering 
immediate returns, and that proved to be Livermore � intending, however, to 
return to the city.  But a large practice, if not a very lucrative one, with 
faith in the future, a glorious climate, and good health induced him to remain, 
where he now practices his profession.
 
History of Alameda County, California�, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883, p. 984-985