Following is one of the Biographies and Stories which where gathered by Charles Sumner McKamy in the 1950s for publication in a Crawford County History Book. Unfortunately he passed away before the book was published.
There were seven John Taylors in the Revolutionary War, one of whom with his family, floated down the Ohio River on a flat boat and landed in Henderson County, Kentucky. He was the Great Grandfather of Carson Taylor. There are many Taylors in that area of Kentucky.
The Grandfather of Carson Taylor, John Taylor, was born there, and as a young man, probably about 1830, migrated to Illinois and settled on a farm or what he converted into a farm located on the Range Road and the County line between Crawford and Lawrence Counties. His farm was west of the Dollahan place and was bounded on the west by that of George Conover and south across the county line by that of Andy Fitch. This was in the Hillsborough School District and Township. He married Mary Elizabeth Goff, whose father had a farm in Honey Creek Township in the Castle School District. He had four sons, Lafayette, Francis, Harvey and William E. Francis died young. The others lived and died in the area of ages ranging from 75 to 82. One daughter married Isaac Gerhart, who died young and left a daughter who is Mrs. Laura Montgomery. Lafayette married Rachel Jane Highsmith, whose father was Ewing Highsmith and had a farm in the Good Hope District, west of Flat Rock. He developed a farm in Honey Creek Township and raised four sons, Carson, Carlton, Cull and Cleveland, and four daughters, Carrie, Cora, Ceola and Cleo. All married and had large families except Cora and Carson. After two years in Central Normal College at Danville, Indiana at the age of 18, he began teaching school. After two terms at Hurricane, four at Castle, which was his home District, and two at Taylor, he, with Walter Lindsay and Walter Thompson, migrated to Colorado Springs, Colo. in March 1898. When the Spanish-American War broke in April 1898, Carson Taylor and Walter Lindsay enlisted for service in the Philippines in the First Colorado Regiment U.S. Volunteers. This regiment raised the first American flag over Manila when the Spanish Garrison surrendered to the American forces on August 13, 1898. The Regiment was quartered in Manila until the outbreak of the Philippines Insurrection Feb. 5, 1899 when they advanced to Sautalan, driving back the Insurgents and protected the Pumping Station controlling the water supply of Manila until the Regiment was ordered home in July 1899.
Carson Taylor had a friend who had become the Editor and half-owner of the first newspaper published in English in Manila, which was called "The American". This friend, William J. Mathews, induced Taylor to take his discharge and remain in Manila as Circulation Manager of "The American".
Early in 1900, he with two other friends, bought the interest owned by the partner of Mathews and Taylor became the Business Manager, with Mathews as Editor and General Manager. A few months later, Mathews received a cable that his wife was seriously ill in Colorado. He gave Taylor a Power of Attorney and departed for the U.S., and Taylor, at the age of 26 with only a few months experience, was running a newspaper. In the meantime, Taylor started a small paper called the "Daily Bulletin" with the cooperation of the owners, operators and agents of the various steamship lines that were carrying passengers and cargo to and from the Philippines. He had saved some two thousand pesos, or the equivalent of about seven hundred U.S. dollars and was able to rent desk room in the office of a Spanish afternoon paper and of their small plant to print the shipping Bulletin.
The Bulletin prospered and within two years had bought a small plant with the profits made and credit he had been able to establish.
In December 1902, he was appointed by William H. Taft, who was the first American Governor General of the Philippines, as Disbursing Officer of the Philippine Exposition Board, which was organizing and collecting exhibits for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition to be held in St. Louis in 1904.
He employed a manager for the Bulletin who worked under his direction during the year of 1903, which he was serving as Disbursing Officer for the Exposition Board in Manila, and who managed the paper while he was absent during 1904 and up to March 1905 with the Board in St. Louis.
On February 23, 1905, he was married in St. Louis to Elise Isabel Bogard, whose uncle was one of the Directors of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. After a short honeymoon in Vincennes, Ind., the couple visited the Taylors family in Illinois and the Bogard family in St. Louis and sailed from San Francisco on the then new Mongolia, which was the largest freight and passenger steamer of the Pacific Mail Steamer Co. then operated on the Pacific. The Russia-Japan War was on and the Mongolia was loaded with war materials for Japan and took on more in Honolulu during a three-day stop there.
They left the steamer at Yokohama and went by train to Tokio, thence to Kyolo and Kobe, where about twelve days in these three cities they proceeded to Nagasaki where the ship spent some two or three days taking on coal. There was a stop of about three or four days in Shanghia before proceeding to Hongkong, which was at that time the terminal point for the large steamers, where they waited about a week for a small steamer to proceed to Manila. Large steamers could not go to Manila at that time as the bay was too shallow and there were no locks.
Taylor resumed management of the Bulletin and life in Manila where he had many friends.
The first child, Lafayette, was born in 1906. Mrs. Taylor's mother, Mrs. Merrean Bogard, came to Manila to join them in 1907, and she, with the family, returned to St. Louis in 1910. Carson joined them to spend the winter in St. Louis, visited Illinois the next summer and returned to Manila in September 1911. The second son, Carson, was born in January 1913. Mrs. Taylor did not quickly recover from a case of denque fever. She, with the two children and her mother, went to Munich, Germany on the S.S. Princess Alice in April 1914. Carson intended to join them in about two months but was delayed and the first world war started in August. He was unable to go into Germany to bring the family out until May 1915 and under war conditions the European trip was spoiled, but they left Munich the day after the Louisitania was sunk, spent some two weeks in Switzerland, a week in Dizon and Paris, two weeks in London and landed in New York in June.
After visiting in St. Louis and Illinois, the family decided to establish a home in Los Angeles and Caron would commute between there and Manila while the boys were in school. Up until the last war, he had spent more than five years traveling back and forth in ships on the Pacific Ocean.
Lafayette graduated from the University of Southern California in 1928 and after a brief experience on the stage, took off for New York in 1930 where he married and is now in business. Carson is with his mother at the home in Los Angeles and is in the camera and photo supply business.
Mrs. Taylor had pneumonia in 1948 which left her with a much enlarged heart and high blood pressure. She has since suffered several strokes and is a helpless invalid in the Los Angeles home, being cared for by three wonderful nurses on eight hour relays. Carson spent last year with her and is still commuting across the Pacific as the management of the Bulletin and conditions at home demand. Now by air in about thirty-six hours flying time as compared with 35 days in the honeymoon trips on the S.S. Mongolia steamship.
The Bulletin is now the oldest existing daily newspaper in Manila and has lived longer than history records of any other daily newspaper in the Philippines except one Spanish paper -- El Commercio -- which was operated by father and son for 57 years until the son died in 1925.
The Bulletin is the only American-owned paper of seven dailies published in English in Manila. It now employs nearly three hundred persons including provincial correspondents, all of whom are Philippines, except the Publisher, Managing Editor, Business Manager, and one Society Editor.
Carson Taylor is a Charter Member of the Manila Lodge of Elks, which was established in 1902 and was Exalted Ruler of the Lodge in 1914-15. He was raised as a Master Mason in 1910 (Carregidor Lodge No.3), a Shriner in 1915 inducted as Inspector General of the 33 degree Scottish Rite of the Republic of the Philippines in 1956. He is a member of the following clubs: Elks, Army & Navy Club of Manila, Wack Wack Golf and Country Club, Bagnio Country Club, Manila Overseas Press Club, Union League Club of San Francisco, Jonothon Club of Los Angeles and Honorary Member of the Manila Rotary Club and Manila Golf Club; is a member of the American Association of he Philippines and the American Chamber of Commerce of Manila.
Editor's Note: The foregoing history of the life of Carson Taylor is very similar to the life of the late Lawrence S. Heath, starting his career as a cub reporter and copy boy in the office of the Manila Bulletin in he year 1919, without finances. He and Mr. Heath were good friends, both being born and raised in the same neighborhood, taught school in same school districts, just west of Flat Rock, and his success too has been due to hard work and sticking to the job, the same as Mr. Heath.
The clipping taken from a Manila paper dated Dec. 5, 1953, headed a "Tribute to Taylor", we quote: "Carson Taylor, 78 years old, can look back over the past 53 years and claim with justifiable pride that he has contributed substantially to Philippine progress. The Bulletin was no more than a shipping sheet, "published in the interest of the merchant marine" when he started it in 1900. As the paper broadened its scope, it became "the exponent of Philippine commerce", and still later, fulfilling the functions of a metropolitan daily, it became the exponent of Philippine progress". That is what it remains today.
He can also claim credit for having developed, over the year, some of the most outstanding local newspaper men of their day, and for giving to the country crop after crop of honest and efficient reporters trained to write fairly and accurately, without dear or favor. We have a letter from Mr. Taylor stating he celebrated his 81st birthday Dec. 5, 1953.