Patrick Tayluer: The Man Behind the Sea Shanties

This is part of a series of posts about the retired sailor and shanty singer Patrick Tayluer (1856-1948). Find the entire series at this link!

“These should rank with the best shanty and sea-song recordings ever made.”

So said the sea shanty expert William Main Doerflinger in May, 1942, describing the recordings he had recently made of the retired sailor Patrick Tayluer. Circumstances have conspired to keep those recordings under wraps, until this blog series. Last time, I embedded two of Tayluer’s finest shanties. Before we go on to a profile of the singer, let’s hear one more of his songs, complete with a brief spoken explanantion of the song.

Now this is a song that was always sung by sailors their last days ashore. And it was generally sung as they came down to their ships with their bundles on their backs and their bags. In those days, sailors never carried valises, it was always bags that they had. And this is the song that they used to sing:

Now it’s one cold and dreary and morning in December
When all my money I had spent
Where it had all gone to, I don’t remember
So I down to a shipping office went
Oh now that day there being a great demand for sailors
From London out to California and back to France
Well, I shipped on board of a Yankee ship the Oxford
And I went upon the booze with my advance

Walk Back! Heave in the slack!
Well, heave away the capstan, heave a pawl, heave a pawl
Oh, it’s about ship’s stations, boys, be handy
All raise tacks, sheets, and mainsail haul!

Now next morning when I arrived upon the quarterdeck
Oh, such a sight you never saw before
There were sailors there, I swear, from every nation
There was Russian Finns and Irish Finns and Japanese galore
Now I thought that I would go down into the fo’c’sle
And turn into my bunk and have a snooze
When I heard a voice above me loudly bawling
“Lay aft, you sons of guns, and answer to your names!”

Walk Back! Heave in the slack!
Well, heave away the capstan, heave a pawl, heave a pawl
Oh, it’s about ship’s stations, boys, be handy
All raise tacks, sheets, and mainsail haul!

Now I knew that in my bag there was a bottle
For I saw the boarding master put it there
But behold to my astonishment and wonder
Instead of a bottle of whiskey it was a bottle of medicine for a cough!

Walk Back! Heave in the slack!
Well, heave away the capstan, heave a pawl, heave a pawl
Oh, it’s about ship’s stations, boys, keep handy
All raise tacks, sheets, and mainsail haul!

[Coughing]

Now when I got down at morning into the fo’c’sle
Oh such a crew you’d never seen before
There wasn’t one man who could understand another
And I didn’t know whether to go ashore
But behold, I thought I’d have to stay aboard of her
And put me voyage through without a hitch
So I asked the mate a-which a-watch to go to
And he told me, you’ll be picked out soon enough

Walk Back! Heave in the slack!
Well, heave away the capstan, heave a pawl, heave a pawl
Oh, it’s about ship’s stations, boys, be handy
All raise tacks, sheets, and mainsail haul!

Now we singled up and the tugs they got beside of us
They took us through the locks and and out into the river
And there we got down to Liver…Gravesend
It was there the fun is started rather high
Aw, the mate he lost his head because he couldn’t talk to
The sailors–didn’t understand ’em there at all
So he told the captain then and there to pay ’em off
And that was all that I could get aboard

Walk Back! Heave in your slack!
Well, heave away the capstan, heave a pawl, heave a pawl
Oh, it’s about ship’s stations, boys, be handy
All raise tacks, sheets, and mainsail haul!

Tayluer’s account that the song was sung while sailors were walking to their ships carrying their bags is possible, of course, but it leaves open the question of when and where it was sung aboard ship. Doerflinger printed this version of the song (under the title “Mainsail Haul”) in the chapter on main-hatch songs or forebitters, which are songs not used for work and therefore not considered shanties, generally sung in the sailors’ living quarters in the fo’c’sle. He put other versions among the shanties, and opined that the texts whose verses are unrhymed couplets were shanties and those with rhymed quatrains, like Tayluer’s, were forebitters. Although some scholars have repeated this claim, shantyman Stan Hugill said he knew the version with rhymed quatrains as a capstan shanty, and shanty expert Joanna Colcord indicated the same; so this song of Tayluer’s certainly was sung in some vessels at capstan, windlass, or pumps. It also could have been sung in the fo’c’sle when the sailors were not at work.

I’ll mention just a few aspects of the song and Tayluer’s performance. Most authorities agree that this song, which has an unusual melody and usually includes irregular call-and-response, probably came to sea from the music hall tradition ashore. According to Doerflinger, this version parodies the situation around 1850, when “there was an increase in the proportion of foreigners in the crews of the American packets.” In his lyrics, Tayluer’s sense of humor is on full display; in those days, for example, Finland was part of the Russian Empire, and (just as now) many Irishmen are named Fionn or Finn, hence there are “Russian Finns and Irish Finns” aboard. Tayluer’s half-verse about cough medicine may not have been part of the song as he usually sang it; although it’s a traditional verse that’s also sung by Thomas Ginovan in AFC’s James Madison Carpenter Collection, Tayluer didn’t remember half of the verse, and clearly didn’t know how to make it rhyme or scan. I suspect he had heard it a few times, was reminded of it because he was in fact about to cough, and worked the half-remembered verse in as best he could, thus adapting his song to the situation in which he sang it. (The cough occurs after the next chorus. It is a much longer coughing fit on the disc, but I edited most of it out. You’re welcome!)

Now that we’ve heard another of Tayluer’s songs, let’s see what we can find out about his life. Doerflinger himself did not know much about Tayluer, but he did record interviews with the retired mariner about his life, including one long story in which Tayluer recounted how he went to sea and described his first two stints aboard ship. Let’s hear Tayluer tell the story. You can listen in the player below and follow along in my transcript.

Bill Doerflinger: Captain Tayluer, tell us a little about yourself, how you grew up, how you first went to sea.

Patrick Tayluer: Well, it’s rather an interesting career, but I always kept it mostly to myself, and never much liked giving it away. I was born in Eastport, Maine, in 1856 and when I grew to be a boy, about seven years of age, mother wanted me to go to school. I was always a very obstinate boy, and the very first day I went to school, for bursting out laughing at the schoolmaster, an old Irishman, I got three raps over the knuckles. I picked up the slate and I threw it at him, and that was the end of my school days. I came home that night, and I refused, point blank, the next day to go to school.

My mother asked me, “Well, boy, why won’t you go to school?”

“I don’t want to go nowhere! What my father never done, no other man shall ever do to me. I know I’m young, but my youngness don’t deter that, mother, so please let me go my way.”

In those days, mother had to pay 15 cents a week for me to go to school, but I didn’t care. I would not go. When I became nine years of age, I used to roam around with my sister, and we used to go out in the back blocks, up the Miramichi and up the Calais River, sometimes up skating and sometimes up hunting. Many is the time she used to say to me, and she would defend me in every little thing I done. Mother used to give me some awful tittings, but I didn’t care. I just went me own way.

When I was 10 years of age, I went down to Fairfield, and there I started cutting ice for the fishermen. Sometimes I would earn as much as four and five dollars a day. I used to bring the money home and throw it into my mother’s lap. My mother used to tell me how she was going to beat me up and break me up and one thing and another if I didn’t leave it off, that someday I would fall into the river and drown. Well, no, I wouldn’t leave it off.

I come home one night, and I was 13 years of age, and my mother gave me the awfulest walloping I ever had in my life, and I sulked and brooded over it. The next morning, the little piece of money that I had in my money box, I took it out and I put it in my pocket and down to the Railway Depot. The trains weren’t so plentiful then, but I happened to catch one, and I got on board of the train.

I’ll never forget the conductor when he came to me: “Hello, boy, where are you going?”

“I want to go to Boston, sir.”

“Boston? What are you going to Boston for?”

“Well, I want to get a ship and go to sea. My father’s a sailor, and I want to be one too.”

“Oh, yes? Does your mother know about that?”

“Well, my mother don’t care anyway, where I go, so I’m going to sea.”

“Have you got any money, boy?”

“I got a little.”

“Well, do you know how much your fare is going to cost you?”

I’ll never forget it. A lady on the other side of the train, she jumped up and she says, “I’ll pay the boy’s fare.”

“Never you mind, lady, I’ll take this boy to Boston, and I’ll look after the boy.”

Well, I got into Boston, and that conductor, he looked after me as he promised he would, and I went down to the docks, and I sampled out my ships, and at last, I saw a beautiful looking ship laying there, the El Capitán. And I went aboard. And I’ll never forget it, the captain was standing at the break of the poop, and he looked at me.

“Well, boy, what do you want?”

“Well, sir, I’d like to go to sea. I’d like to go as a deck boy.”

“You would? You ever been to sea?”

“Well, I’ve been on fishing schooners, sir.”

“Where you from, boy?”

“I’m from Eastport, Maine.”

“What is your name, boy?”

“Patrick Tayluer”

“Why, you ain’t any relation to Sam Tayluer, are you?”

“Yes, that’s my father. He’s master of a fine British ship.”

“Well, I’ll be hanged! Yes, boy, I’ll give you a chance, and as long as you’re a good boy, I’ll do everything I can for you. Now you can come into the cabin and sit down and write a letter to your mother where you are.”

“All right, Captain, but I can’t write.”

“All right. I’ll write the letter for you. You just touch the pen.”

So he wrote that letter, and all the time he was writing it, I didn’t know whether to run from that ship or what to do.

[Disc side 6597 B ends and 6598 A begins]

Well, three days later, my mother came down and boy, oh, boy. I was up in the main top, and I was coiling down buntlines in the main top, when I saw my mother come over that gang. Captain Curtis came out on the deck, and courtesy to her, and my mother looked at him. “Is my boy aboard of this ship?”

“Yes, ma’am, Are you Mrs. Tayluer?”

“Yes, I am Mrs. Tayluer, his mother.”

“Well, Mrs. Tayluer, I think your boy is born to be a sailor, but I’m going to tell you, I’d let him make a voyage if I were you.”

My mother said: “No, that boy has no education. And what is more, he’s run away from home now. I don’t want him to go to sea.”

“Now, lady, let me tell you something. There’s good men at sea, and there’s fine boys who go to sea and become good mariners and good masters. Now, if this boy goes to sea with me for a voyage, and he don’t like it, when he gets back he’ll come home. And if he does like the sea, I’ll teach this boy what I know myself. Boy, come down from aloft!”

Well, then my heart was in my mouth because I thought I was going to get another walloping from my mother. When I got down on the deck, I went and I stood by Captain Curtis, and he looked at me. “Boy, greet your mother. She’s your mother! Greet her!”

I greeted my mother, and my mother looked at me. She says “boy, do you want to go to sea?”

“Yes, Mother, I do. Father’s a sailor, and why shouldn’t I be?”

“I know it. Well, Captain, he’ll want some clothes.”

“Never mind. I’ll look after the boy’s clothes. I’ll look after the boy in everything. I’ll be what his father can’t be to him, because his father is like me. He’s always at sea.”

“All right.”

Well, I went ashore with me mother, and I spent the rest of the day with her in Boston, and I saw her off in a crying fit that night in the train. Well, my heart went out to her, as all boys’ would to their mother. But when I got back on board of that ship, the captain called me to his cabin, and he told me, he says, “now, boy, that’s your mother, and if you make a good boy at sea and look after your mother, no more can any boy do. I’ll teach you what I know myself.”

He did, and I was with him for eight years, from deck boy to chief officer. And from Chief Officer, I went down to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and took out an extra master’s license, which was more than Captain Curtis had. He educated me. He done everything that a father could do for a son, and I have always thought so much of Captain Curtis that I have never forgotten his honor nor his name.

When I came back and I got my master’s license, our ship owner came on board, and he looked at Captain Curtis.

“Captain Curtis, do you know of a man fit to take charge of the Luzon?”

“Yes, what about my mate here?”

“Oh, far too young. Far too young.”

“Well, he got something more than I got. I’ve only got a master’s license, but he has an extra master’s license.”

I got disgusted listening to them, so I come out on Deck. By and by, the owner came on deck to me. I’ll never forget him. Old man Snow looked at me, and he said, “Well, boy, do you think you’re able to take charge of a ship like the Luzon?”

I looked at him, and I said, “did Captain Curtis tell you I could?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then let Captain Curtis speak the word, not me.”

And he said, “all right, go aboard the Luzon and take charge.”

I went aboard the Luzon took charge. My first voyage, I made a record voyage to Calcutta.

I was in the Luzon for four years, and we were laying in London on one of our triangle voyages from New York to Calcutta, Calcutta to Fuzhou and Fuzhou back to London with tea. I was laying in London, and I joined up with the Bechuanaland Border Police, and so ended my career as a sailor for 19 long, weary years.

Bill Doerflinger: What was the special reason that made you join the Bechuanaland Border Police, Captain Tayluer?

Patrick Tayluer: Well, simply because it was a hard life and it was full of adventure. My life has always been one full of adventure from my boyhood days up till the present day that I am 86 years of age.

Patrick Tayluer’s story is fascinating, but sadly, it’s not entirely true. Because a lot of money rode on each voyage of every fast merchant ship, their progress was followed with great interest in “Shipping News” columns and financial sections of newspapers. One quite common convention was to print the name of the ship followed by the name of the captain, so we can follow the command of the El Capitan and the Luzon in newspapers at Chronicling America.

From news reports, we learn that the El Capitan was launched in 1873, when Tayluer was 17, so he couldn’t have gone aboard her at 13 as he claimed. Her original captain was William P. Lincoln, who remained in command until sometime after May 19 and before July 4, 1882, when he was succeeded by Captain J. E. Sewall. Sometime between May and November, 1887, about the time Tayluer joined the army, command passed from Sewall to Captain Humphrey. As for the Luzon, she was commanded from 1875 to about 1885 by Captain Willey; between May 1884 and November 1886, command passed to J.G. Park, who remained in command until at least 1900. In other words, in the period during which Tayluer claimed to be sailing under Captain Curtis in the El Capitan and then commanding the Luzon (roughly 1869 to 1885), there was never either a Captain Curtis aboard the El Capitan or a Captain Tayluer aboard the Luzon.

This doesn’t mean Tayluer’s entire story is false. He might have run away from home, and he might have sailed in both the El Capitan and the Luzon, just not as first officer or captain. But it does give us leave to discount the more farfetched aspects of the story. For example, was he really put in command of a clipper ship eight years after going to sea at 13?  This would be extraordinary. In fact, when interviewed by newspapers in the 1930s and 1940s, Tayluer claimed to have become the youngest captain in the U.S. Merchant Marine at 24. As Old Man Snow says in Tayluer’s story, he was “far too young” to really have been a captain at 21 or 22.

Then, too, there is the question of why he would join the Bechuanaland Border Police, a remote British Army division protecting the borders of what is now Botswana. Tayluer’s service in southern Africa is corroborated by his enlistment documents for World War I, which show him finishing his previous service as a private in the Imperial Light Horse, a South Africa regiment, at the end of the second Boer War in 1902. Presumably, he was transferred there from the Bechuanaland Border Police, which ceased to exist as a separate force in 1895. Tayluer’s explanation that he joined up for the adventure, however, seems unconvincing: even if he wasn’t a captain, his life as a merchant sailor included travel to all the great ports in the world, while Bechuanaland was a remote and boring army post. If he WAS a sea captain, it becomes even more preposterous that he’d give up this hard-earned middle class status to enlist as a private in a remote outpost. Even patriotism couldn’t explain it, since it seems he was an American who enlisted in the British army.

One logical reason for his army service would be that he was given the option to enlist by the British authorities as an alternative to a criminal trial, a common practice in the 19^th century that was continued (sometimes unofficially) through World War I. In his spoken introduction to the song “Robinson Crusoe,” Tayluer falsely claims to have written the song, but the context is more interesting than the claim: he says he wrote it while waiting to stand trial in Liverpool for shooting two fellow sailors during an attempted mutiny. He never reveals the outcome of the trial.

Doerflinger published a brief biographical paragraph on Tayluer in his book, Shantymen and Shantyboys. Like me, Doerflinger dismissed Tayluer’s claims of having served under Curtis in the El Capitan and having commanded the Luzon, and left these ships out of Tayluer’s biography entirely; but he accepted Tayluer’s later claims of having survived shipwrecks in the Sutherlandshire and the Shenandoah. I’ve also found crew lists revealing Tayluer’s merchant marine service late in his career and located records of his military service in the first world war. I’ve found a few census records, a Social Security application, and even a death record. Tayluer was also profiled by several Australian newspapers in 1930 and in many American papers in the 1930s and 1940s, from which we can glean more.

We have to be careful in using some of these documents, since Tayluer was inconsistent with the stories he told to newspapers, employers, and governments. As just one example, he told several conflicting tales about his birth: In 1937, the New York Times reported that he was born in Maitland, Nova Scotia, but the New York Daily News reported Eastport, Maine; in 1941, he told the Washington Post that he was born on a schooner, between Maitland and Eastport. In 1942, he told Doerflinger he was born in Eastport. This changing story also shows up in his service records: in some ships he claimed to be American and in others Canadian.

The reason for his changing story is unclear, but it seems likely that he was claiming to be a citizen of the United States while living in America, but a British subject while living in Commonwealth nations like the UK, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. He certainly claimed to be a British subject born in Nova Scotia when enlisting in the British army in World War I, and several newpaper stories mention him drawing an army pension, for which he might have to keep up that story. On the other hand, to collect his U.S. Merchant Marine pension and Social Security benefits (starting in 1937), it was simpler to be a citizen of the U.S.

Tayluer was also inconsistent about his age. Almost all the newspaper accounts agree with Doerflinger that he was born in 1856, but at his enlistment for World War I in 1914 he claimed to be 45, or about 12-13 years younger than he really was. I found crew lists from his last sea voyages in 1929 and 1931, in which he claimed to have been born in 1880 and 1882. Obviously, he was lying about his age to remain eligible to serve in both the army and the merchant marine.

A similar discrepancy concerns Tayluer’s military service. He told Doerflinger, along with some newspapers, that he was in India and joined the 10th Lancers, a British cavalry regiment, to serve there during World War I. But he told other newspapers he was wounded in battle with the 12th Lancers in France. He also claimed to have been an orderly for General Allenby in Palestine. Instead, his enlistment papers show him signing up in London, and joining the Army Service Corps, the transport and supply branch of the army. His specific assignment was to the Remount Company, whose job was to procure horses for the army, to train them if necessary, and to deliver them to the units that needed them.

Recruitment literature for the Remount Company clearly stated that only men accustomed to horses need apply, and specifically requested men from 25 to 40 years old. On his application, in response to the question “What is your trade or calling” Tayluer appears to have written “rough rider,” which in this context would mean a horsebreaker; this could have been a skill he picked up in Africa. He gave his age as 45, although as we have seen he was probably about 57. He gave his place of birth as Nova Scotia, Canada, although he was probably born in Maine.

I’ll mention one more discrepancy, because it sheds light on Tayluer’s practices as a storyteller. He told several newspapers that after the war he served his last nautical command aboard the Mongolia, his first and last steamer after a career on sailing vessels. He said that she was on the New York-San Francisco route, and that he gave her up in 1921, telling the New York Times, “I was glad to quit her.” In fact, according to my newspaper research, the Mongolia, famous because she was the first American ship to battle (and possibly sink) a U-Boat in World War I, sailed commercially between Munich and New York until mid-1924. She did not begin the San Francisco route until early 1925. Moreover, I found a crew roster from the New York passenger lists that shows Tayluer sailing on the Mongolia, but in 1929 rather than 1921, and as her bosun, not her captain. I found other lists from the same era in which he is listed as bosun, and some where he is simply listed as a sailor. I think this tells us first of all that he never attained the rank of captain, since a man with an extra master’s license wouldn’t be sailing as a plain seaman or bosun. On the other hand, it suggests his stories weren’t entirely made up but embellished from a seed of truth; he WAS on the Mongolia, just not when he claimed, and not as her captain. It suggests he might well have served on the other specific ships he mentioned in his stories, even if we now know he wasn’t chief officer or captain.

Given all this, I believe we can come up with a passable biography. Patrick Tayluer was born March 17, 1856, in Eastport, Maine, according to his Social Security application. The same source tells us his parents were Peter Tayluer and Emma B. Crowell. He often told people his father was a French-speaking Acadian and his mother an Englishwoman, and that they had previously lived in Nova Scotia. This is consisitent with the fact that he pronounces his own name “Ta-LOOR” when discussing his father, but “TAY-lor” at all other times.

At thirteen or fourteen, in about 1870, Tayluer had his first overseas voyage. He served on a variety of ships, possibly including the El Capitan and the Luzon, for about 15 years. He also claimed to have taken a large number of emigrants to Australia in the clipper ship Loch Torridon, and it seems likely that was during this period. It is also likely that during this time, he began his hobby of building intricate models of sailing ships, which he did professionally into the 1940s.

Sometime around 1887, possibly as a result of trouble with the law, Tayluer joined the British Army to serve in southern Africa. He served in both the Bechuanaland Border Police and the Imperial Light Horse, from which he was officially discharged in 1902. Both units involved working with horses, and Tayluer apparently became a skilled rider and horse groom. During his time in Africa, which he claimed encompassed 19 and a half years, Tayluer claimed to have participated in many battles, and said he married a Boer woman, with whom he eventually had eleven children.

After leaving the British army, Tayluer returned off and on to sea. He told Doerflinger he was involved in the shipwreck of the Sutherlandshire and another on the Shenandoah. The wreck of the Sutherlandshire occurred in July 1900, when Tayluer’s records indicate he was still in the army; however, it’s conceivable he was in the reserves, and already at sea, when the Boer War began in October 1899. The closest event to a shipwreck of the Shenandoah occurred in 1907, when she was damaged and underwent extensive repairs.

By the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Tayluer and family were living in Poplar, East London. He enlisted again, this time in the Army Service Corps, Remount Division. His medal card indicates that his rank was Private, and his assignment was “STPR” or “strapper,” which is a skilled horse groom. Some remount specialists traveled to the front lines to deliver horses under combat conditions, but Tayluer’s medal card suggests he was employed grooming and conditioning horses in the main remount depot at Woolwich, part of a large military base in London. This may be because of his age: at his enlistment he admitted to being 45, which was already old for the Remount Division; but he was actually 57.

After the war, Tayluer continued with both his profession of sailing and his hobbies of building model ships and long-distance walking. In 1921, his wife died, and he became officially too old to serve in the merchant marine. However, he continued sailing by lying about his age. I have found records of him on seven ships in the 1920s and 1930s, sailing as either an able seaman or a bosun.

In the 1920s, Tayluer also lived in Australia for some time, later claiming expertise in Australian history and as a singer of Australian songs. In August, 1929, he began a long-distance walking trip in Brisbane. He walked to Perth, a distance of about 2500 miles, arriving in April 1930 and supporting himself along the way with odd jobs. According to Doerflinger, in the 1940s Tayluer still had a scrapbook that included newspaper clippings about this walk, and indeed there are many Australian newspaper articles about it, some of which misspell his name.

According to the last shipping record I found, Tayluer sailed back to the United States in the West Honaker (incidentally the first diesel-powered ship to circumnavigate the globe, and one of the old ships sunk off Normandy as a breakwater for the D-Day invasion), arriving in Portland, Oregon in August, 1931. The roster lists his position in the crew as “workaway,” that is, a passenger who paid his passage in labor rather than money. This seems to be the true end of his career at sea; the following year, he was profiled by the Washington Times as a retired sailor and soldier.

Tayluer eventually came to live on the east coast of the United States, spending time in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., and, if the newspaper accounts are to be believed, traveling from one city to another on foot. In 1936, Tayluer’s visit to Washington was covered in the Washington Post, which said that he was still living a nomadic lifestyle, “earning his own way by making ship models, telling sea stories over the radio, mending awnings and sails.” A 1937 report in the New York Times stated that Tayluer had finally settled down at the Seamen’s Church Institute at 25 South Street, New York; but five months later the Washington Times reported that he had walked from New York to Los Angeles to visit his sister!

According to the New York Herald Tribune, in July, 1940, an official of the New York World’s Fair encountered Tayluer in a New York subway carrying all his belongings, including a ship model he was working on. Tayluer was hired to build his ship models in public, as part of the Fair’s Hall of Inventions.

Tayluer continued making trips between New York and Washington for several years thereafter; in 1941, during a visit to Washington, he was again profiled by the Post., which reported that all but two of Tayluer’s eleven children had predeceased him. In 1942, Doerflinger met and interviewed Tayluer in New York. At that time he seemed on the verge of departure; there are several references in the Lomax correspondence to Doerflinger “holding Tayluer in New York” until the recording equipment arrived. Doerflinger lost touch with Tayluer after leaving the country in 1943 to serve with the Office of War Information.

After 1942, as World War II occupied more and more of Americans’ attention, Tayluer found it hard to interest anyone in his ship models or his sea stories. According to a story that ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer on New Year’s Eve, 1944, during the last week of that year, Tayluer “arrived in Philadelphia, tired, hungry, and homeless after an 11-day hike from New York, with only a scrapbook to
recall his former glories.” A kind police officer found Tayluer sleeping in Suburban Station, one of the city’s train stations, and arranged a temporary room for him at the Salvation Army hostel. Although as the Inquirer noted, Tayluer “found that some of his former vitality was gone,” he apparently kept up his habit of long-distance walking. On March 23, 1948, possibly on one of his long distance walks to see his sister in California, Patrick Tayluer died in Douglas, Nebraska. The old salt had just turned 92 years old.

Oddly enough, of all the newspaper profiles of Patrick Tayluer, which include Australian stories in 1930 and 1931, and American stories from 1932 until 1944, not a single one mentioned the fact that he sang sea shanties. They focused instead on his other hobbies, long-distance walking and model shipbuilding, and on his career as a soldier and sailor. When Tayluer died in 1948, his prowess as a shantyman was known only by a tiny handful of people: Bill Doerflinger, Alan Lomax, and a few staff members of the Library of Congress. Doerflinger’s book, Shantymen and Shantyboys, published by MacMillan in 1951, finally, and posthumously, made Patrick Tayluer a well known name among sea shanty enthusiasts. This blog series gives you the opportunity to see and hear him for yourself.

In future posts we’ll look at more of Tayluer’s sea songs and his opinions about them. Fair Winds!