WALKER, Samuel Frye, 1887 biography

WALKER, HANSEN, FAULCONER, CLARK, HODGES, ACKERLEY

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 2/16/2014 at 10:06:15

Biography ~ Samuel Frye Walker

"Biographical and Historical Record of
Ringgold and Decatur Counties, Iowa"
(Lewis Publishing Company (1887)), Pp. 559-60:

S. F. WALKER, of the firm of Walker & Hansen, publishers of the Lamoni Gazette, became a resident of Lamoni in 1884, and for a time was a writer for the Herald. He is a native of Ohio, born in [December 23, Richmond Co.] 1831, his father being a native of New Hampshire, and his mother of England. His maternal grandfather at one time owned a farm the site of which is now occupied by the city of Cincinnati. His parents settled in Cincinnati when that city had but one brick house. They subsequently removed to a farm twenty miles above on the Ohio River, where Mrs. WALKER’s father laid out the town of New Richmond, and there our subject was born. In his youth he attended the common schools and Clermont Academy. In 1850 he came West as far as the mouth of the Kansas River, where at that time no white man’s habitation could be seen, Indians being the only inhabitants. Returning east-ward he passed up the Illinois River to La Salle, going thence by stage to Chicago, and from there in a farm wagon to Kalamazoo. Later he went by the lakes to Buffalo, and from there to Utica, New York, where he worked in a carriage shop for one year. In the winter of 1850-’51 he attended Central College, at McGrawville, New York. In 1851 he was engaged in engineering on the Mississippi River, and in the year 1852 he was a student at Wesley University, in Ohio, after which he taught school for a time near New Richmond. This life being too quiet of one of his roving dispositions, he, in the spring of 1853, went to California by the Isthmus of Panama, and for seven years was in the deep mines of Sierra County. He was foreman of the Pioneer Company that carried water by a high flume on to Illinois Ridge, and tunneled the famous peaks of that locality. Mr. WALKER was a candidate for the Legislature on the first Republican ticket nominated in the county. In 1857 he caught the Frazer River craze, and 1859 found him in the Comstock mines at Gold Hill, Nevada, where the mining was all done by hand, and from the surface. Recrossing the Sierras on snow-shoes from California, he helped to start Methodism at Virginia City. In 1861 he returned East via the overland route, stopping eleven days at Salt Lake City. After remaining a few weeks in Ohio he again came West. Joining an emigrant train at Council Bluffs, Iowa, he went to Montana, when the Territory contained no white settlements. Passing through Idaho, via Portland, he reached San Francisco, and from there went to Nevada, and in 1863 was at Austin, that State, and in 1864, was in Smokey Valley, where he owned a ranch, where he was engaged in raising hay and cattle. In 1869 he visited Plano, Illinois, where he became a member of the Reorganized Church of the Latter-Day Saints. He was united in marriage in [November 7] 1869 at Sandwich, Illinois, to Mrs. M. FAULCONER. After his marriage he settled at Blue Springs Ranch, Nye County, Nevada, where he lived until 1878. In 1876 he attended the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia. In 1878 he engaged in farming new where Lamoni now stands, which he followed till coming to Lamoni in 1884. In the fall of 1885 he helped organized the Lamoni Gazette, with which he has since been connected, and, being a man of genius and a forcible writer, the paper has proved a success.

NOTE: Samuel died April 1, 1889. Marietta (Hodges) Faulconer Walker was born April 10, 1834, Willoughby OH, the daughter of Curtis and Lucy (Clark) Hodges; graduated from Oxford College for Women in 1859; married August 2, 1860, Bexar Co. TX Robert T. Faulconer who joined the Confederacy and died in 1862; married Samuel Frye Walker; founded and edited Autumn Leaves from 1888 to July 1904; editor of Zion's Hope; authored eleven books; donated land for Graceland College, now Graceland University; died April 12, 1930, Brea CA.

Lois Sarah (Walker) Ackerley, daughter of Samuel and Marietta Walker, was born July 1, 1875, Smokey Valley NV, and died in 1956. Her husband Albert Lamoni Ackerley, was born March 8, 1872 in Decatur Co. IA and died in 1949.

All interments were made at Rose Hill Cemetery, Lamoni IA.

Transcribed by Sara LeFleur, Decatur County Historial Society Musuem, January of 2014

Note by Sharon R. Becker, February of 2014