Albert Pierce Taylor

Albert Pierce Taylor (December 18, 1872 – January 12, 1931) was an American archivist, journalist and historian of the Territory of Hawaii. He served as the Librarian of the Archives of Hawaii from 1924 until his death.

Life and career Born December 18, 1872, in St. Louis, Missouri, Taylor was the son of George A. Taylor, a Canadian from Nova Scotia, and Melissa Pierce Taylor, whose family was from Illinois and Virginia. He was educated in Leadville, Colorado and graduated in 1890–91 from St. Mark's School in Salt Lake City. He initially worked for the Union Pacific Railroad surveying the route from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. In 1896, he became as a clerk and later assistant secretary for the Silver Party Party Convention in St. Louis. He went to Washington, DC to manage with the party's headquarter and help with the 1896 presidential campaign of William Jennings Bryan. Promise of a consulship by the party leaders evaporated when Bryan loss to William McKinley. Taylor decided to join the Cuban War of Independence on the side of the rebels but was arrested, imprisoned and deported to New York by the Spanish colonial authorities.

Taylor initially worked as a secretary to Walter F. Frear, a Hawaii Supreme Court justice and member of the board of commissioners responsible for drafting the Hawaiian Organic Act. He later worked as deputy clerk to the Hawaii Supreme Court. During the Spanish–American War, he enlisted and fought in the Philippines.

Taylor wrote Fighting a Typhoon, a magazine about his service in the Philippines, and Under Hawaiian Skies, a history of Hawaii. He also contributed numerous papers and articles for the Hawaiian Historical Society and the Paradise of the Pacific magazine. In later life, he served as a Trustee of the Hawaiian Historical Society and was its Recording and Corresponding Secretary until his death.

Personal life Taylor and his first wife Ella De Mund, from Elkhart, Indiana, were married in 1896 in Baltimore. They had one daughter who married Wesley Peck and resided in California. On November 5, 1902, he married his second wife Emma Ahuena Davison at her mother Mary Jane Kekulani Fayerweather's residence in the Mānoa Valley. Descended from Hawaiian nobility, and the Beckley family, both Emma and her mother were authorities on Hawaiian history, culture and language and provided important influences on Taylor's own historical work. They had no children.

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