Patrick Tayluer (1856–1948) was an Irish-American sailor and one of the most important informants in the history of sea song collecting. In 1942, William Main Doerflinger recorded 66 songs and stories from him at the Seamen’s Church Institute in Manhattan. Doerflinger described them as ranking “with the best shanty and sea-song recordings ever made.” Tayluer’s songs were transcribed and published in Songs of the Sailor and Lumberman, though he did not live to see the book in print.

Born in Eastport, Maine, Tayluer ran away to sea at thirteen aboard the merchant ship El Capitán. He spent decades in the merchant marine and also served in the Bechuanaland Border Police and the Imperial Light Horse during the Second Boer War. He continued sailing into the early 1930s, often lying about his age to remain eligible for work. In his later years he was a nomadic figure, supporting himself by building ship models, telling stories, and walking extraordinary distances. Around 1929 he walked 2,500 miles from Brisbane to Perth, Australia. In 1940, he was hired to build ship models publicly at the New York World’s Fair.

Tayluer was a prolific storyteller who freely embellished his own history. Doerflinger and other sources styled him “Captain,” but Library of Congress research has found no evidence he held that rank. But whatever liberties he took with his biography, his singing was the genuine article, learned aboard working sailing ships in the last decades of commercial sail.