Dr. Alfred W. Taliaferro: More Than Just Marin’s Most Treasured Doctor
By Robert L. Harrison
Dr. Alfred W. Taliaferro (1825–1885) was not only Marin’s most beloved physician he also delivered impressive public service while retaining a spirited sense of adventure. In the latter half of the 19th century the doctor served Marin with untiring good humor and exceptional professionalism. In any kind of weather, day or night, he answered the call for medical help from every corner of the county. He would not ask for compensation from those he judged could not afford to pay.
Dr. Taliaferro was born in Gloucester, Virginia. In 1845 he attended the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. With the 1849 news of the California Gold Rush he left Virginia in the ship “Glenmore.” The ship laden with tobacco, soap and in sundry items arrived in San Francisco on October 6, 1849. Most of the crew immediately left for the gold fields but Taliaferro and four others traveled to San Rafael where they leased a 21 acre farm site in today’s Dominican area. The site was later home to San Rafael’s famous Hotel Rafael. The Virginia group were not competent farmers but exceeded at hunting, dancing and having fun.
Taliaferro spent many a day hunting on Rancho Canada de Herrera owned by Domingo Sais. Sais sought the doctor as a neighbor and gave him 32 acres of his 6,658 acre rancho. In 1855 Taliaferro gave the land as a wedding present to his boyhood friend from Virginia, Charles Fairfax. After the Fairfaxes moved to the property it became fashionable to say, “Let’s go to the Fairfax place,” and thus a name for the town was born.
It was in 1851 when Dr. Taliaferro opened his practice and Marin’s first drug store on San Rafael’s Fourth Street. That year he also began his life of public service as a member of the county’s first Grand Jury. He joined the Whig Party and on September 3rd was elected to the California Assembly. He was an active legislator during his two years in the Assembly (1852–53) introducing a series of bills including bills: on the protection of game; regulation of ferries; and, provision for a map of the State.
When San Quentin State Prison opened in 1854 Dr. Taliaferro was retained as the prison’s first physician. In March 1855 he described appalling prison conditions to a State Prison Committee: “I am there often. When it is necessary I am there every day. The management of the prison has been rather loose…the men when locked up are literally piled one upon another…. I have known diseases among convicts from the use of bad flour….”
In 1856 Taliaferro was a candidate for the State Senate where he might influence prison reform as well advance other issues. His personal popularity was enough for him to win the seat running as a Democrat, a party at the time with allegiance to the rights of southern states, in the Republican leaning anti-slavery 11th District comprised of Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino Counties.
Senator Taliaferro introduced several pieces of legislation including: Authorization in support of the State Prison at $20,000 ($660,000 in 2021 dollars); A bill to authorize a special tax in Marin County; A bill to control the sale and use of adulterated drugs; and, An act to appropriate funds for expansion of the State Insane Asylum. On February 25, 1858 the Sonoma Democrat opined:
“Dr. Taliaferro is much of a gentleman, and he has a great deal of influence in his quiet way in the Senate. He is steady and attentive to business — a kind and obliging friend.”
Taliaferro remained active in local politics. In 1874 he was elected to the newly formed San Rafael Board of Trustees. He was named on 176 of the 183 total ballots cast and was re-elected one year later gaining a similar level of support. Taliaferro’s only electoral defeat came in his run for the Assembly in 1880. The description of his close loss appeared in the November 4, 1880 Marin Journal: “The vote for Dr. Taliaferro is one of the most flattering ever cast for a candidate in this county…the Doctor made no canvas, and took no personal part in the campaign, and…it can be readily be seen that under more favorable conditions his personal popularity might have swept the county, as Garfield has the country.”
Taliaferro was not only a successful and popular public official; he was also a man with an aptitude for patriotism and adventure. In 1859 he joined the First Brigade, Sixth Division of the California Militia, a force similar to today’s National Guard. The unit was also known as “Kibbe’s Rangers” named after their Commanding General William Kibbe. Taliaferro was Surgeon of the unit with a mission to end the Native raids on the settlers in Tehama County. General Kibbe praised him in a report to the Assembly: “The Surgeon of my command, Dr. A. W. Taliaferro, deserves to be especially noticed…. The expedition was singularly fortunate in its exemption from casualties. Not a single life was lost, and the wounded all recovered.”
The Tehama County incursion was not Dr. Taliaferro’s only encounter with violence. While working at San Quentin Prison he was involved in an attempted escape. The May 14, 1858 Sacramento Daily Union described it this way: “An attempt was made to escape from the State Prison yesterday…all [were] returned but one, and he was soon taken…. An overseer, George Lees, beat one of the men so severely that Dr. Taliaferro was obliged to threaten him with a rifle to stop his brutality.”
Dr. Taliaferro never personally engaged in a duel but he did assist in the last political duel staged in California. In 1861 dueling was illegal in California but that did not deter the duel between Daniel Showalter and Charles Piercy from taking place on May 26th at Charles Fairfax’s estate. Taliaferro’s house was used as the place for the seconds to rendezvous. From the Daily Alta California of that day, “There the preliminaries were arranged and about two dozen spectators prepared to start for the ground.” In addition to Taliaferro and Fairfax the spectator crowd included two State Senators, five Assemblymen, and the San Quentin State Prison Warden with two prison guards. The duel resulted in Showalter shooting and killing Piercy.
A rumor of an expected duel that would have personally involved Dr. Taliaferro was reported in 1862. From the San Joaquin Republican of February 15th that year, “San Francisco…is rife with rumors in regard to a contemplated duel between Col. Sims, of the Second Cavalry Regiment, and Dr. Taliaferro of Marin County.” It seems Sims was ardently anti-slavery and wanted the Democratic Party to adopt that view. The states’ rights leaning Taliaferro was aligned with those who supported the inclusion of both the Abolitionist and Secessionist wings of the Party. There appears to have been a feud but a duel between the two men never took place.
On his way home one evening in 1874 Dr. Taliaferro experienced his most potentially lethal encounter with violence. The March 26th Marin County Journal headlined: “Attempt To Assassinate Dr. Taliaferro.” While on his ride from a friend’s house he was shot in the left arm fired by bungling highwayman. He spurred his horse to make a hasty escape and luckily no additional shots were fired. The bullet was apparently deflected by a bone and found its way out his shoulder. According to the Journal: “Had it struck an inch or so further forward it must have pierced the arm and entered the heart.” Taliaferro recovered quickly and just two weeks later he was elected to San Rafael’s first Board of Trustees. The identity of his assailant was never known, although the traces of two “vagabonds” from the city were found nearby.
On December 4, 1884 the Marin Journal reported: “Dr. Taliaferro, whose health has been indifferent for some weeks, sailed for the realm of Kamehameha last Monday.” He returned to his office three weeks later and maintained his practice through late November of the following year. But on December 10, 1885 the Journal noted his death: “The Doctor had been confined to his room since Sunday November 29th, with one of his attacks of indigestion and insomnia, but a fatal termination was not thought of…his death has caused such an universal pallor over our homes, which is almost as if crape were on every door.”
Taliaferro died of pneumonia on December 9, 1885. He had apparently contacted the disease out on a night call assisting in a child birth. The Marin Journal on December 17, 1885 remembered him: “Funeral of the People’s Friend…. By the strange comprehensiveness of his character, by the broad philanthropy of his daily life, by his practical sympathy for all suffering, and by his brilliant personal qualities, he has touched and become part of all classes of the people; and by the most singular combination of good qualities that were ever mingled in one man, he became equally respected and beloved by the high and low, the rich and poor, the learned and cultured and the unlearned and ignorant….” Eulogies poured in from every corner of Marin and beyond.
