Isaiah West TABER

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Son of Freeman Taber and Louisa Dean
• Census: 1860, Living with mother in law, in New Bedford, Bristol Co., Massachusetts

Notes:

Name:
According to the Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley:

Isaiah West Taber was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts August 17, 1830. Taber went to sea at the age of fifteen and spent several years working on whaling ships in the North Pacific. He came to California in 1850, where he spent four years working first as a miner, then a farmer.

Taber returned to New Bedford in 1854 where he studied dentistry and began a dental practice. An interest in amateur photography eventually became his life-work. He settled in Syracuse, New York, where he opened his first studio.

In 1864 he returned to California at the inducement of the photographers Bradley and Rulofson, whom he worked for until 1871. Taber established the "Taber Gallery" at No. 12 Montgomery Street in 1871. His highly successful business was well-known for portraiture and a vast stock of California and Western views-many of which were the unacknowledged works of other photographers.

Taber's success and stature in California and abroad are evident in his being awarded the photographic concession of the Midwinter Fair of 1893-94 in San Francisco, his being sent to London in 1897 to photograph the pageant of the Queen Victoria Jubilee, and his commission to photograph King Edward VII. Taber's career ended in 1906 when his entire collection of glass plates, view negatives and portraits on glass were destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake and fire. He died February 22, 1912.

Posted on Find A Grave by D J Pimentel

Isaiah married Mary F. R. HOWLAND on 9 Apr 1857. Mary (daughter of Capt Pardon HOWLAND, Jr. and Lydia Church PARKER) was born on 6 Jan 1834 in Massachusetts; died on 27 Sep 1878 in Marysville, California; was buried in Congregational Church Cemetery, New Bedford, Bristol Co., Massachustts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]