He was born in 1806 in New York City, a son of Jacob B. and Mary (Cooper) Taylor and great-grandson and namesake of the founder of the family in America, who came from England in 1736. Moses' father was a New York business man, a confidential agent of John Jacob Astor.
The boy attended at least three private schools in the vicinity of his home. At fifteen, however, his school days were over.
He became a clerk with the importing house of G. G. & S. Howland on South Street. That clerkship marked the beginning of a business career filling six decades, in which nothing was permitted to interrupt his continuous accumulation of wealth. By 1832 he had amassed a capital of $15, 000 and was in a position to set up in trade for himself. He began by handling the output of Cuban sugar planters and in his hands this business became a profitable enterprise.
The great fire of December 1835 destroyed his South Street store and practically all his possessions, but hardly halted his advance to business success. At forty he was a capitalist and before he was fifty, he could well afford to leave the importing trade to become president, in 1855, of the City Bank. The panic of 1857, causing distress to more than one bank president, was for Taylor an ill wind that brought economic good. When the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad stock had fallen to five dollars a share he was able to buy out-right in the open market a controlling interest in the road, which he retained until his death. Within seven years after the purchase the stock was selling at $240 a share. Taylor was induced by Cyrus W. Field to join him in the first Atlantic Cable venture and he acted as treasurer of the company throughout its period of failure and near-collapse until success was won.
After the discouraging break in the first cable the country was involved in civil war, with the Lincoln administration looking to New York for financial backing and leadership. Taylor, who was known as a "hard-money" Democrat but a supporter of the Washington government, acted as chairman of the bankers' committee which took the first federal loan in 1861.
After the war he made heavy investments in public utilities, but the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, in which he was closely associated with Samuel Sloan, and the allied Lackawanna Coal & Iron Company remained his chief interests.
In 1832 he married Catherine A. Wilson, who with three daughters and two sons inherited his estate, estimated at $40, 000, 000.
