Samuel Walker

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Samuel Walker
Born May 2, 1814(1814-05-02)[1]
Hudson, Summit County, Ohio[2]
Died September 22, 1852 (aged 38)[3]
Resting place Walker Family Cemetery, Johnson County, Iowa[4]
Spouse Elizabeth Ralston Stover (m. 1839) «Did not recognize date. Try slightly modifying the date in the first parameter.»"Marriage: Elizabeth Ralston Stover to Samuel Walker" Location: (linkback:http://jimlindstrom.com/mediawiki/index.php/Samuel_Walker)[5]
Children Hannah Elizabeth Walker
Parents James Walker
Mary Sarah ("Betsey") Burnett[6]

Walker Pioneer Family Bio[7]

You just can't go back further than the Walkers if you are looking for Anglo-Saxon families that have been in Johnson County for several generations.

In 1838, two Walker brothers from Ohio were among the first white settlers to call Johnson County home.

Headed west from Indiana to find prosperity like most other pioneers, some friends of the Walker family - Eli Myers and Philip Clark - met fur trader John Gilbert en-route.

Gilbert had paid the area's Native Americans with whiskey in the 1820s to build a trading post here in 1830. He convinced Myer and Clark that it would be a good place for them to homestead, too.

So Myers and Clark doubled back to Indiana, recruited two of the Walker brothers (from a family of 10) and arrived back in a land inhabited largely by about 600 Indians from the Sac and Fox tribes. Three chiefs ruled the land: Poweshiek, Totokonock and Kishkekosh.

The rest of the Walker family followed in 1840, and in the 161 years since then, literally hundreds of Walkers have called Johnson County home. Though they originated in Scotland, then Ireland, then in Pennsylvania and Ohio, the Walker lineage that stretched into Iowa initiated a family history that spans six generations on the banks of the Iowa River.

Settling in Johnson County

According to the "History of Johnson County, Iowa" (pg. 301-302)[8], Samuel Walker and brother James Walker were among the first 7 white settlers in what is now Johnson County.

The first three settlers--Phillip Clark, Eli Meyers, and S. C. Townbridge--rode on horseback from Elkart county, IN, through South Bend, IN, through Rock Island, IL, and onward to what is now Pleasant Valley Township. They established basic cabins, then returned to Indiana for the winter. Their glowing accounts of Johnson County, created something of a fever in Indiana. The next spring (in 1837), Clark, Meyers, and Townbridge returned with 4 men (among them Samuel and James) and settled. Throughout 1837 a number of other Indianans moved to Johnson County to settle it.

Linn Clan Entry on the Walkers[9]

John Walker, an Ohio farmer, was married to Sarah Burnett, who was three-fourths American Indian. John's three sons: Samuel, James, and Joseph, emigrated to Johnson County, Iowa from Ohio in 1837. Their father followed his sons in 1841. Samuel Walker and his wife, Elizabeth Stover, were members of very respected families which were community leaders in the early pioneer days of Iowa. Their son John S. Walker, married Sarah Woodruff. John and Sarah and their two daughters, Libbie and Hattie, moved to western Iowa and thence to the silver mines of Jefferson City, Montana. Elizabeth Stover Walker, having lost her husband, Samuel, in 1852, accompanied them. Elizabeth died on 29 July 1888 in Jefferson City. The walker family returned to Iowa by wagon, as they had gone. They settled near Shelby, Iowa, where Libbie married Frank B. Linn. The children of Libbie and Frank were 3/64ths American Indian.

Historical Records

Samuel appears in a May 1838 Tax List for Johnson County, Iowa--then still part of the Wisconsin Territory (p. 270)[10]

Notes

  1. ↑ http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/w/a/l/William-Walker-OK/GENE9-0017.html
  2. ↑ http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/w/a/l/William-Walker-OK/GENE9-0017.html
  3. ↑ http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/w/a/l/William-Walker-OK/GENE9-0017.html
  4. ↑ http://iowagravestones.org/gs_view.php?id=131387
  5. ↑ http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/w/a/l/William-Walker-OK/GENE9-0017.html
  6. ↑ http://iagenweb.org/johnson/families/WalkerFamily.htm
  7. ↑ http://iagenweb.org/johnson/families/WalkerFamily.htm
  8. ↑ http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofjohnson00iowa#page/302/mode/2up/search/walker
  9. ↑ The Clan Linn in the Twentieth Century, p553
  10. ↑ http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofjohnson00iowa#page/270/mode/2up/search/walker
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