Butte County
Biographies
JEFFERSON ASBURY WALKER
JEFFERSON ASBURY WALKER.—A veritable
old-timer, and a man well and favorably known in Chico, where he has long been
a master builder of residence and business houses, is Jefferson Asbury Walker,
who was born in St. Francis County, Mo., on November 13, 1844. His father
was Erastus Mayben, also a native of that state and
county, while his grandfather Walker was a native of Pennsylvania. He
settled in Missouri early,
retired and died there. Erastus Mayben Walker
crossed the plains with ox-teams to California in 1850,
and mined in the sierras and in different parts of the state; and his wife and
five children joined him in 1856, coming via the Nicaragua
route. They settled on a farm near Marysville for a year and then went to
a farm near Woodbridge, not far from the site of Lodi. This
acreage he improved, and there he lived until his death, which occurred while
he was on a visit to his son at Chico.
Erastus
Walker’s wife was Miss Louvina McKee, and she also
came from St. Francis County, Mo., where she was born, the
daughter of John McKee. He was a native of Georgia,
and was left an orphan when he was twelve years of age. This may have had
something to do with his running away from home and state, and going to Missouri,
where he secured work on farms. He knew how to work; he learned farming,
and he became well-to-do. He had thirteen children, and he gave them each
a farm. Mrs. Walker died in San Joaquin
County when she was thirty-six
years old, the mother of five children, two of whom are still living. The
eldest of these was the subject of this sketch; the other was Louisa, Mrs.
Baker, a resident of Chico, who
passed away in 1917.
Brought
up in Missouri and educated at private schools until he
was eleven years of age, Jefferson Asbury Walker journeyed, with his mother and
the rest of the family, in 1856 to New Orleans, and from
there proceeded on the boat Tennessee
to Greytown, bound for the Pacific. It was the
time of the Walker filibuster
expedition, and the adventurer had captured all the provisions, and they ran
short and nearly starved. Reaching San Juan and sailing on the Orizaba,
they reached San Francisco and came to Yuba County, where the father was; the
next year, they moved on to near Woodbridge, and there Jefferson A. Went to
school. When eighteen, he started with his father making brick; and in
this field he continued later alone.
When
he was twenty-one his father returned East, and
Jefferson A. bought out his interest in a claim, and proved up on one hundred
sixty acres and ran the same as a farm. He made brick on his ranch, and
sold them at Woodbridge and Stockton.
On
February 18, 1868, Mr. Walker married, at Woodbridge, Miss
Amanda Richardson, who was born in McHenry County, Ill.,
the daughter of David Richardson, a native of New York. He
was a farmer in Illinois and first came to California,
by ox-teams across the plains, in 1850. In two years he returned to Illinois,
but in 1860 he brought his wife and four children across the continent with
ox-teams and settled near Woodbridge,
where he took up farming. Then he bought a farm at Red Bank, Tehama
County, and still later had a farm two miles
from Chico. And there he died
on September 6, 1894. David Richardson’s wife had been Miss Jane Shaw, a
native of New Hampshire, who died
at Red Bluff in 1886, the mother of six children, three of whom are still
living. A son is Charles Richardson of Oroville, and a daughter, Nellie,
is Mrs. Murphy of Sacramento. Another
daughter is Mrs. Walker, who came across the plains when she was ten years old
and attended school in California.
In
1870 Mr. and Mrs. Walker removed to Los Angeles, where he
became superintendent for Jacob Weixel and Joe Mullally, at the same time that he located in Compton. He
made the first brick that was fired in Santa Ana,
and some of the first houses there were built of his brick. In this way,
for five years, he continued farming and the making of brick.
In
1875 Mr. Walker removed to Chico
and here established a brick yard, and for two and a half years he was below
the town on the Southern Pacific Railroad, on the Hegan
place. He made most all the brick for Chico, and supplied the brick used
for the Oakdale school house, the high school building, the I.O.O.F. building,
the Butte County bank building, the Chico county bank building, the Park Hotel,
the Union Hotel, the Noonan building the Johnson House, and many other
structures. He continued to make brick until about 1902. During this
time he was a contractor and builder and put up brick buildings, not only in Chico,
but also in Redding, Biggs, Wheatland, Santa
Rosa, Hayward and
Oroville. He made the brick for the Hall of Records in Oroville, and
constructed buildings in Butte City,
Tehama, Princeton. He
built up the town of Willows
twice. He had made brick from Santa Ana to Redding,
and finally discontinued this work, to devote all his time to his various
property interests. These include a ranch on Twelfth
Avenue and Fern Street,
set out to prunes, and a residence at Third and Ivy Streets.
Four
children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Walker, three of whom are still living: Fred
E., a merchant at Nimshew, who has a son, Clive A.,
who was a student in the law department of the University of California, and
who volunteered in the war and is a sergeant in the Eleventh Company, Second
Motor Mechanics Regiment, Aviation Section of the Signal Corps with the
expeditionary forces in France; Charles A., a graduate of Stanford University,
is an attorney at Ely, Nev., and has two children, Eileen and Leona; Bert E., a
merchant in Ely, has two children, Rodney and Bernice; and Edna M., who became
the wife of Dr. Allen Howard of Santa Rosa and died in 1912.
A
Democrat in national politics, Mr. Walker was a city trustee for Chico
for one term, and has served as a city fireman, being now an exempt and about
the oldest fireman in town, a member of Engine Company No. 1. He is a
member of the Chico lodge of Odd
Fellows, in which he is a past grand. He was also a member of the Canton,
and Encampment, being a past officer of the latter; and of the Rebekahs. He is a member of the Veteran Odd Fellows
Association of San Francisco. Mrs. Walker is a member of the Rebekahs and of the Veteran Rebekah
Association, having held offices in each.
Transcribed 1-27-08
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 641-652, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
©
2008 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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