Taylor, the second settlement of the name in the Mormon northeastern
occupation, lies three miles south of Snowflake (which it antedates). It
is on Silver Creek, which is spanned by a remarkable suspension bridge
that connects two sections of the town. When the first Mormon residents
came, early in 1878 the settlement was known as Bagley. Then there was to
be change to Walker, but the Postoffice Department objected, as another
Walker existed, near Prescott. The present name, honoring John Taylor,
president of the Church, was adopted in 1881, at the suggestion of Stake
President Jesse N. Smith.
The first settler was James Pearce, a noted character in southwestern
annals, son of the founder of Pearce's Ferry across the Colorado at the
mouth of Grand Wash, at the lower end of the Grand Canyon. James Pearce
was a pioneer missionary with Jacob Hamblin among the Paiutes of the
Nevada Muddy region and the Hopi and Navajo of northeastern Arizona. He
came January 23, 1878, in March joined by John H. Standiford. Other early
arrivals were Jos. C. Kay, Jesse H. and Wm. A. Walker, Lorenzo Hatch, an
early missionary to the northeastern Arizona Indians, Noah Brimhall and
Daniel Bagley. A ditch was surveyed by Major Ladd, who did most of such
work for all the settlements, but the townsite, established in 1878, on
the recommendation, in September, of Erastus Snow, was surveyed in
December by a group of interested residents, led by Jos. S. Carden, their
"chain" being a rope. The irrigation troubles of the community appear to
have been fewer than those of the Little Colorado towns, though in the
great spring flood of 1890 the dams and bridges along Silver Creek were
carried away.