William Taylor (1821–1902) was an American Methodist missionary minister, who in 1884 was elected by the Methodist General Conference as bishop over the Methodist missions in Africa for the Methodist Episcopal Church. Taylor spent most of his adult life performing missionary work around the world. He began his missionary service when he was assigned by the Conference to establish missions in California and provide services in San Francisco during the California gold rush of 1849. His other missionary work involved the establishment of self-supporting missions in various countries about the world, bringing him to England, Ireland, India, South America, Australia, New Zealand and Africa, all of which he wrote about in a number of publications. After many years serving as a Methodist missionary Taylor was elected Bishop of Africa. He has received acclaim and is noted for introducing Methodism through his missionary efforts to several countries around the world. Taylor is also credited for introducing the eucalyptus tree to California with seeds he gathered while serving as a missionary in Australia.

Family background Taylor was born May 2, 1821, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia in Rockbridge County. in the Commonwealth of Virginia. William was the oldest of five sons and six daughters, born to Stuart Taylor and Martha Hickman.Buck, 1936, pp. 345-346Taylor, 1895, p. 25Jenness, 1934, p. 73 In his autobiography, Story of My Life (1896), Taylor describes his grandfather, James, as one of five brothers who were "Scotch-Irish of the Old Covenantor type" who emigrated from County Armagh, Ireland, to the colony of Virginia, about one hundred and thirty years ago" (i.e. 1766). The Hickman family was of English ancestry and settled in Delaware in the late 1750s. Both families "fought for American freedom in the Revolution of 1776", and afterward emancipated their slaves. Taylor’s father, Stuart, was a "tanner and currier—a considered a mechanical genius of his times"; his mother was "mistress of the manufacture of all kinds of cloth". Both parents, he says, were of "powerful constitution of body and mind…their English school education quite equal to the average of their day".Buck, 1936, p. 345 Taylor married Isabelle Anne Kimberlin on October 21, 1846 after waiting an mutually agreed upon arrangement that he would serve the church for four years. Taylor had two sons and two daughters, Morgan Stuart, Oceana, William Jr., and Charles Reid. Only Morgan lived to see adulthood.

Conversion to Christ Before William was ten years old, his grandmother had taught him the Lord's Prayer and explained that he could become a son of God. At age ten he longed for this relationship, but was unsure how to obtain it, during which time he underwent a "profound religious experience", which was affirmed for him in 1841 at the age of twenty. After overhearing the story of a poor Black man who had received salvation, he wondered why he could not, also. He recounts in his autobiography, "soon after, as I sat one night by the kitchen fire, the Spirit of the Lord came on me and I found myself suddenly weeping aloud and confessing my sins to God in detail, as I could recall them, and begged Him for Jesus' sake to forgive them, with all I could not remember; and I found myself trusting in Jesus that it would all be so, and in a few minutes my heart was filled with peace and love, not the shadow of a doubt remaining." So inspired, the young Taylor entered the Baltimore Annual Conference in 1843.Stevens, 1899, p. 31

Missionary work

Between 1849 and 1883, Taylor traveled and became involved in many parts of the world as an evangelist missionary. His extensive missionary travels included Australia and South Africa (1863-1866); England, the West Indies, British Guiana, and Ceylon (1866-1870); India (1870-1875); South America (1875-1884); and Liberia, Angola, the Congo, Australia and Mozambique, a global involvement unmatched by no other during his time (1885-1896).Lay, 2010 Taylor was committed to bringing salvation to those he deemed were in need of it, and to this end he wrote a work, entitled, Reconciliation, or, How to be saved, which he had first published in 1867.Taylor, 1874 To assist other preachers in this effort he also wrote the work, The Best Mode of Preaching the Gospel, published in 1859.Taylor, 1859

California

Taylor's missionary career began in San Francisco, California in September 1849, the year after gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill, resulting in the California gold rush. Due to the thousands of people flooding into California the Methodist General Conference deemed it necessary to send missionaries there to provide social work and religious services. The first sent for this undertaking were Reverends William Taylor and Isaac Owen.Stevens, 1899, pp. 31-32 When Taylor arrived, and with no chapel for people to gather in and listen to sermons, Taylor preached the gospel in the streets to settlers, prospectors, Native Americans, Chinese immigrants, and to the sick and the poor, without receiving any salary. He subsequently came to be known as "California Taylor" throughout his missionary career.Taylor, 1895, pp. 103, 131-132Dictionary of African Christian Biography, Essay In October 1849 Taylor acquired a lot next to the home of Reverend Hatler on Jackson Street who invited him and advanced him the money at no interest to build his own house.Taylor, 1858, pp. 42-43 Thriving congregations also emerged at Sacramento, San Jose, Stockton, and Santa Cruz while the Gospel was also preached in many of the mining camps. As the immigration increased so did the numbers in the congregations.

Before Taylor was able to set out for California, all the routes to California became flooded with prospectors and adventurers. Not wanting to subject his newly wed and expecting wife to the risks of Indian attack while crossing the plains, or sailing to Panama at the risk of contracting yellow fever by crossing the Isthmus, Taylor got the last berths on the Andalusia, a ship headed for San Francisco by going around Cape Horn at the tip of South America. About one hundred and fifty days into the voyage Taylor's wife gave birth to a daughter on June 8, 1849, who they named Oceana, while they were going around the cape, and who only lived to be about a year old.Jenness, 1934, pp. 74-75Paul, 1928, p. 44 Their ship, Captain Wilson at the helm, had arrived in the midst of a thick fog and so he cautiously landed just north of the Golden Gate. During the voyage they had experienced incidents of damage to the rigging and sails due to high winds, which the captain was able to remedy en route, without have to stop at any port.Taylor, 1858, pp. 13-14 Having been informed about the very high cost of food in San Francisco due to the gold rush, the Taylors brought a year's supply of food along with them. As the rents for housing accommodations were also abnormally high, Taylor and his wife found lodging with another Methodist minister who gave them the first month's rent free. Having logging experience, he crossed the bay north to the redwood forests and acquired his own timber in which he used to erect his own house, in less than a month.

Taylor described young San Francisco at this time as a "city of tents". Because of poor living conditions and the scarcity of good food, many took sick with scurvy, tuberculosis or Asiatic cholera, often resulting in death. Here Taylor spent much of his time giving aid and words of encouragement and prayer to those afflicted.Taylor, 1895, p. 34 The main square had many gambling hotels, where Taylor would spend time outside preaching in the streets about the vices of gambling and drinking, which was, to the amazement of some, often well received by the patrons of those establishments.Jenness, 1934, pp. 75-76Thoburm, 1884, p. 278

Taylor had preached hundreds of sermons in the streets of San Francisco, and would sometimes take up a collection which he saved and used to build a Bethel Chapel in 1851.Taylor, 1895, p. 195 Sometimes various miners, who appreciated Taylor's service, donated generously.Taylor, 1858, p. 290 Before securing a permanent location for the Bethel, Taylor had converted an abandoned ship, the Panama, one of the numerous other ships abandoned in the San Francisco Bay, as a “Seamen’s Bethel Church", which was soon well attended.Kverndal, 1986, p.485 While the building of the permanent Bethel was well in progress it was destroyed during the great San Francisco Fire of 1851, and with the prospect for it to pay off loans Taylor found himself in debt.Taylor, 1858, pp. 212-213, 335

Taylor persevered, however, and with the financial aid of those appreciative of his dedication and continued services, he acquired the necessary funds to rebuild. In the process he had organized the first Methodist church in San Francisco, while also establishing the first hospital in California.Taylor, 1858, p. 335-336 Taylor also had prepared at Baltimore the basic materials of a church, which he had shipped by sea, that were used to construct the first Methodist edifice in Sacramento.Stevens, 1899, p. 32

There were several other preachers in San Francisco at the time but, “Father Taylor,” as he was commonly referred to, was the best-known preacher, because, among his other efforts, he often went out of his way to find the people who needed his service and console. When Taylor came down with a rare sickness he was confined to his bed for awhile, and soon discovered he had an ability for writing, as, after seven years in San Francisco, he had much to write about. Here he produced his first work, Seven Years of Street Preaching in San Francisco, which was published in 1856.Jenness, 1934, p. 76 While in California he had accumulated a debt trying to expand his ministry with sailors in San Francisco, which he was able to pay back through the sales of his book, Seven years' street preaching in San Francisco, California, published in 1856. This work made him a popular revivalist in north-eastern and mid-western cities.Tzan, 2024, Essay Taylor was so impressed with the overall California landscape, he once stated in his work, California life illustrated, 1858, "The Lord has lavished more beauty on California than upon any spot I have ever seen."Taylor, 1858, p. 153

Eastern United States and Canada At the end of seven years of missionary service in California Taylor aspired to the idea of being an itinerant preacher. After being granted a leave of absence from the General Conference he traveled through the United States for a brief period, preaching wherever the opportunity presented itself.Whiteside, 1906, p. 263 He spent three months in Philadelphia, during the summer of 1857, preaching in all the main Methodist churches in that city. During autumn of 1857 Taylor visited New England for the first time and attended the New Market Camp Meeting, in New Hampshire. Thereafter he visited Boston and sat in preaching at the church of Reverend Edward Taylor.Taylor, 1895, pp. 226-227 At the beginning of 1861 just before the Civil War broke out, he went to Canada and spent a year on a line of work where he preached and offered services at nine camp meetings for the next four years, where he was often favorably received.Taylor, 1895, p. 240 Though Taylor's time in Canada was short lived he used his connections and time there to expand his religious-social network to include people from the British Methodist realm.Tzan, 1999, p. 92

England