Biographies For Muscatine County, Iowa

Biographies
For
Muscatine County Iowa
1889

Source: Portrait and Biographical Album, Muscatine County, Iowa, 1889, page 471
JOHN DOUGAN WALKER, an attorney and counselor at law, and President of the Farmers' and Citizens' Bank of Wilton, Iowa, was born in Wayne County, Ind., near Richmond, on the 14th day of October, 1818. His parents were Samuel and Rebecca ( Dougan ) Walker, and his ancestry on both sides was of Scotch origin of the Covenanter faith, and were driven out of their native country to the north of Ireland by the persecution of the Stuarts in the sixteenth century. From that country the great-grandfather emigrated to the Colony of Virginia previous to the Revolution. Both grandfathers of our subject fought in the Revolutionary War, after which his paternal ancestor settled in Kentucky, while his maternal grandfather located in Tennessee. In the year 1795 the grandfather Walker joined an expedition under Gen. Clark in pursuit of the Pottawattamie Indians, going as far north as the present site of LaFayette, Ind. His report of the country explored in that expedition induced his son, Samuel Walker, the father of our subject to emigrate to Wayne County, Ind., with his family in 1808. The country was then an unbroked wilderness, inhabited only by Indians and a few straggling, adventurous pioneers. There he remained through the Indian War of 1811 and the second war with Great Britain, after which he engaged in the occupation of farming.
Our subject received a limited education in the primitive schools of his native county, which were then in the most crude condition, but he was ambitious, and obtaining books wherever he could find them, studied with diligence at his home during his leisure hours. At the age of fourteen he removed with his parents to Fountain County, Ind., on the Wabash River, where they remained about five years, and from thence to Hendricks County, locating twenty miles west of Indianapolis, where the same length of time was spent. In 1841 he came with his father to Iowa, with the purpose of seeing the country, with the view to making a permanent location. They drove a flock of sheep all the way from Indiana to Iowa Territory, selling them on reaching the border of this State, then continued their travels south from Maquoketa into Missouri and returned to Indiana without having decided upon a location, but Mr. Walker, the father had fully determined to settle in Iowa and accordingly returned with his family in the autumn of 1842, locating in Cedar County, where he engaged in farming.
At that time John remained in Indiana, intending to teach school and pursue the study of law, and the following May entered upon the former profession. In the autumn of the same year, while teaching his second term of school, his father died very suddenly, and the family being left in straightened circumstances, he was obliged to join his mother and her children, of whom he was the eldest, in Iowa, and render what aid he could in providing for their maintainance. Accordingly he came to this State and began farming in Cedar County, where he remained until 1855, reading at intervals such elementary law books as he could procure. The younger children being now able to manage the farm, in the spring of that year he removed to Rochester, where he engaged in business, and in the fall of 1856 removed to Wilton, the town then being in its earliest infancy. In company with Adam Bair he erected a two story building and opened a store, which was continued with varying success until the financial crash of 1857, when they were obliged to discontinue business. This ended the mercantile career of Mr. Walker. For the next two years, he devoted himself industriously to the study of law and in the autumn of 1860 opened an office in Wilton, where he obtained the appointment of Notary Public and immediately began the practice of his profession. In 1862 he was appointed Postmaster, which office he held until 1866, when he was discontinued by Andrew Jackson. In the autumn of 1868 he was elected Clerk of the District and Circuit Courts of Muscatine County, was re-elected in the fall of 1870, and in January, 1873, resumed the practice of his profession, to which, together with real estate and insurance, he has since devoted his attention.
Our subject was one of the original incorporators of the Wilton Seminary in 1866, a high-class institution, was a member of the first Board of Trustees, and for a time superintended the erection od the building. He was a member of the School Board of Wilton when the fine public school-building was erected, and gave his influence to the enterprise. He became a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in 1849, and has held all the offices up to Representative in the Grand Lodge of the State. He has also been a prominent member of various temperance societies, and ever given his influence to enterprises tending to promote the best interests of the community. His religious views are orthodox, he and his wife both being members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In politics he was formerly an old-line Whig, but at the dissolution of that party, became a Republican, since which time his voice and vote have ever been in the support of its principles. His first Presidential vote was cast for William Henry Harrison in 1840, and his last up to this time, 1889, for the grandson of that illustrious gentleman, the Hon. Benjamin Harrison, in 1888.
On the 25th day of May, 1865, Mr. Walker was united in marriage with Miss Eliza Hartman, a daughter of George Hartman , of Pennsylvania, and to them have been born three children--George, Frank and Fannie. Mr. Walker is a man of sterling integrity, industrious and persevering. Prudent and cautious, he is slow in arriving at positive conclusions, but when once reached he holds them with great tenacity. As a professional man he is inclined to counsel peace, moderation, and compromise rather than litigation in courts of law, in fact, he is said to be too much of a peace-maker for a successful lawyer, but this will tell more in his favor hereafter than the most brilliant triumphs at the bar. He hold the respect and confidence of all who knew him. He is a man greatly attached to his family, and enjoys the comforts and moral associations of a happy home. He has never been known to betray a friend or a trust, and if he has enemies they have never made themselves known to him.

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