Taylor, Richard C. (Richard Cowling), 1789-1851

Richard C. Taylor (18 Jan. 1789-26 Oct. 1851), mineral surveyor and practical geologist, was born at Hinton in Suffolk, England. He emigrated to America in July 1830 with his wife and four children, settling in Philipsburg, Pa. The decision to emigrate may have been forced on him. Taylor was involved with the British Iron Company when it failed spectacularly in 1828; his cousin Philip Taylor fled into French exile, and Taylor accepted a mining post in the United States. Taylor may have been encouraged also by an American legacy of property in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, willed in 1827 to his cousin Richard Taylor, a printer(Richard Taylor and Co.) in London, England, who published some of Richard C. Taylor's works. The first task of Taylor's American career was to survey a prospective railroad from Philipsburg to the Philadelphia Canal, a path intended to exploit the minerals of the Allegheny Mountains. By 1834 Taylor was based in Philadelphia. Taylor was a founding member of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists in 1840. His book, Statistics of Coal, a massive 754 pages, was first published in 1848, followed by a second edition in 1855.

Geologist.