Husband Hon. John Hoge Walker 1 2 3 4 5
AKA: James H. Walker 6
Born: 9 Feb 1800 - Cumberland Co, PA 2 3 4 5
Christened:
Died: 25 Jan 1875 7 8 9
Buried:
Father: John Walker (1754-1825) 1 3 4 10
Mother: Isabella McCormick (1759-1823/1853) 1 3 4 10
Marriage: 1831 5 7 8
• Biographical Sketch: Leander James McCormick, McCormick Family Record and Biography (Chicago, IL: Publisher Unknown, 1896).
To read this brief biographical sketch of his life and career, click here.
Wife Catherine D. Kelley 5 7 8
AKA: Catharine D. Kelly 2
Born: - New Hampshire
Christened:
Died: 1860 7 8 11
Buried:
Children
1 M John W. Walker 7 11
Born: 15 Apr 1832 11
Christened:
Died: Aft 1896
Buried:
Spouse: Anna H. Harrison ( - ) 11
Marr: 18 Jun 1861 11
2 M Thomas McCormick Walker 4 7 12
Born: 4 Feb 1834 - Butler Co, PA 7 8 12
Christened:
Died: Aft 1909
Buried:
Spouse: Agnes Caughey ( - ) 7 12 13
Marr: 15 Mar 1866 12
3 M [Infant] Walker 12
Born: 4 Feb 1836 12
Christened:
Died: 1836 12
Buried:
4 F Catherine D. Walker 7 12
Born: 4 Jan 1838 12
Christened:
Died: Aft 1896
Buried:
Spouse: Hon. Samuel A. Davenport (1834- ) 2 12 14
Marr: 30 Dec 1862 12
5 M George W. Walker 7 12
Born: 26 Apr 1840 7 12
Christened:
Died: 7 Aug 1871 7 12
Buried:
6 M James Oliver Walker 7 12
Born: 13 Jun 1842 7 12
Christened:
Died: 19 Apr 1844 7 12
Buried:
Spouse: Did Not Marry
7 F Isabella McCormick Walker 7 12
Born: 11 Feb 1845 12
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
Spouse: H. N. Armstrong ( - ) 7 12
Marr: 25 Apr 1867 12
8 M Quincy Adams Walker 7 12
Born: 15 Mar 1847 7 12
Christened:
Died: 2 Feb 1865 7 12
Buried:
9 F Mary Jane Walker 7 15
AKA: Mary K. Walker 2
Born: 30 Oct 1849 15
Christened:
Died:
Buried:
Spouse: Dilman F. Beemer ( - ) 7 15
Marr: 24 Feb 1878 15
10 M Harry Walker 7 15
Born: 15 Aug 1852 7 15
Christened:
Died: 6 Apr 1879 7 15
Buried:
General Notes: Husband - Hon. John Hoge Walker
He was born of Scotch-Irish parentage on his father's farm in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg. In 1817 his father moved to Washington County, Pennsylvania, where the son completed his education, graduating from Washington College in 1821. Soon after he entered upon the study of law with an uncle in Pittsburgh, where he was admitted to the bar. He came to Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1824, and entered upon a good legal practice almost from the start, becoming one of the acknowledged leaders of the bar, a position he held for more than half a century. Entering into politics, Mr. Walker became a zealous anti-Mason, and was elected by that party to the Assembly in 1832, 1833 and 1834. In 1849 he was chosen State Senator for the district composed of Erie and Crawford counties, serving three years, the last of which he was Speaker of the body. He was the Whig candidate for Congress in 1850, and defeated by only 206 votes, the district comprising Erie, Clarion, Jefferson, Warren, Potter, Elk and McKean Cos., being usually Democratic, by a considerable majority. In 1862 he received the endorsement of Erie County for the same position, but failed to receive the district nomination. In 1872 he was chosen a Delegate-at-large to the Constitutional Convention, and on the 16th of September, 1873, upon the death of William M. Meredith, succeeded him as President of that assemblage. Mr. Walker did much to promote the building of the first railroad along the lake shore, and was active in encouraging the several plank roads that extended out of Erie. During the famous railroad war he took the side of the railroad company, and suffered many annoyances on account of his position. He returned from the Constitutional Convention in bad health, and failed rapidly from that time till his death. [HEC 1884, 969]
He graduated at Washington College in 1822. He studied with an uncle at Pittsburgh, and was the next year admitted to the bar. In 1824 he came to Erie to reside. From that time he was identified for half a century with Erie as a lawyer and public man. He was an advocate of great power, and retained his place as one of the leading men of Northwestern Pennsylvania until his death. His professional career included an amount of continuous and arduous professional work and a prominent, undisputed and well sustained leadership which has few parallels in the state. He was thoroughly Pennsylvanian, by birth, lineage, education and residence. This was strikingly manifest in his conspicuous service in the legislative bodies of the State. In these, his remarkable legislative career has three separate and distinct but equally removed periods of service. His first four years in the Legislature commenced in 1832. The second as senator from 1849 to 1852. The third as delegate at large to the Constitutional convention of 1873-4. As his first service was in the prime of life, the second was in his full-orbed meridian, and the third after he had passed the psalmist's limit. Each period was, in a measure, amid different surroundings of men and of questions. In each period of service his leadership was recognized; for in the first, he was, as chairman of ways and means committee, leader of the House; in the second, speaker of the Senate, and in the third, made president of the Constitutional convention, on the death of William M. Meredith, who, at the head of the Philadelphia bar, and secretary of the treasury under President Taylor, was of national renown. The agitating questions of these respective eras were as different as were the personal surroundings. In the first, the creation of corporations and the construction of canals were foremost; in the second, the building and regulating of railroads were of absorbing interest; and in the third and final service, the restriction of corporations and the curbing of their powers, were uppermost in the minds of the framers of the Constitution. In all of the groups of men and variety of questions, Mr. Walker was a leader of leaders. Sound in his principles, clear in his views of public measures, and earnest in their support, he won admiration and commanded respect. In the halls of legislation, as before courts and juries, his presentation of facts was so clear, and his train of reasoning so cogent, that he generally carried his audience with him. He struck his sledge-hammer blows with tremendous power; and his sarcasm was withering. He seldom lost a cause. Having mastered its fundamental principles, believing its aim to be the enforcement of right and the repression of wrong, he devoted his great abilities to its practice. Though eminently fitted to grace public positions, he was not an officer-seeker. He despised the tricks of the politician. Three times in his long career he accepted public trusts, always to his pecuniary detriment. Each time it was in interruption of professional duties, to him, so much more congenial. Besides, circumstances, and his own convictions, had placed him, in early life, in antagonism to the Democracy in its long and hardly intermitted control of Pennsylvania. Always its opponent, Mr. Walker, on each occasion of his appearance in public position, was found in the leadership of a party of a different name from that borne during his former service. In 1835, as the co-adjutor of Governor Ritner, Thaddeus Stevens and Thomas H. Burrows, he was the leader of the Anti-Masonic majority of the House of Representatives. In 1851-2, as the elect of the Whigs, he presided in the State Senate, and in 1873-4 as the choice of the Republicans, as Meredith's successor in the President's chair, in a body of which Governors Bigler and Curtin, Judge Black and other able men were members. He had passed the meridian of his life when the Pennsylvania Democracy was overthrown, but in the "borrowed time" allotted him, after his three score and ten, he aided in forming a constitution, to protect the people from mischiefs, which as a legislator he had perceived and deplored. He was a public-spirited citizen, keenly alive to the interests of Erie and resolute in their defense. He did much to improve the city, having erected an industrial plant and many dwellings. While in the Legislature he obtained from the State the grant of the beautiful farm for the Alms House and the "Third Section" of land in Mill Creek for the improvement of Erie harbor. He was active in the development of the railroad system centering at Erie and devoted much of his time and means to maintain a plank road. [BDHRBEC, 622]
General Notes: Wife - Catherine D. Kelley
from Erie, Erie Co, PA