Alameda County
Biographies
JOHN POYNER WALKER
JOHN POYNER WALKER. An important factor in the upbuilding
of Alameda county in the section about Elmhurst, John Poyner Walker holds a place of high esteem in the hearts of
the citizens. A native of London, England, he was born
February 4, 1823, a son of William P. Walker. The elder man
was born in Herefordshire, England, and by profession was a lawyer, his death
occurring in 1837. His wife, formerly Elizabeth Sly, of English birth and
ancestry, died in 1833, at the age of fifty-three years.
In the common schools of London John P. Walker received
his education, attending only until he was twelve and a half years old, when he
was apprenticed to learn the work of a wire-drawer. In 1848 he emigrated to Australia and engaged in various employments in
Adelaide, when, in 1850, he came to California, and for three years worked in
the mines about Sacramento. In 1853 he located on the east side of the bay and
engaged in farming on a tract of land which he held as a squatter. He remained
in that location for four years, when he came to this section of Alameda
county, where he now resides, first renting land and afterward making several
purchases, having at the present time three places—the home ranch, containing
forty-eight acres; one in the hills, of three hundred and fifty acres; and one
in the flat of eighteen acres, making altogether four hundred and fifteen
acres. A part of this property is rented, while the remainder he still farms.
In his political affiliations Mr. Walker is a stanch
Republican, and is a broad-minded and progressive citizen.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard 07 May 2015.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages
581-582. The Chapman Publishing Co.,
Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Marie
Hassard.
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