Plumas
County
Biographies
JESSE G. WALKER
Probably no resident of Plumas
County is better or more widely known than is Jesse G. Walker, who has for many
years served as justice of the peace for Plumas Township, with his office in
the courthouse at Quincy. He is a member
of one of the real pioneer families of the Sacramento Valley and, like his
father before him, has been an active factor in the wonderful development and
advancement which has characterized this section of the state. He was born near Quertina, which is located
near Stony Creek, in Colusa County, on the 15th of July, 1859, and
is a son of John O. and Rebecca (Green) Walker, who were natives of Virginia
and Tennessee, respectively, and were married in Missouri. His father was a well educated man and was
well informed on the great political issues of his day. He was a southern sympathizer, was a personal
friend of Henry Clay and favored the Missouri Compromise. He sensed the approach of the Civil War and,
partly because of the violent disturbances already occurring in Missouri and
partly owing to the lure of gold; he resolved to move to California. He joined Captain Coats’ train and became the
first lieutenant of that train. He had
three big covered wagons, each of which was hauled by three yoke of oxen, and
brought with him all the way from Missouri one hundred and fifty head of well
bred Durham cattle, his being the first cattle of that breed brought into
Mendocino County. He also brought with
him a sack of gold, being well-to-do. He
settled first in Mendocino County, where he lived for about six months, and
then moved to Colusa County, where his son Jesse G., was born. There he farmed and raised stock until 1863,
when he moved to Hat Creek, Shasta County, at which time the family consisted
of his wife and five children, two sons and three daughters. Mr. Walker also brought with him two armed
guards, Dick Pue and Frank Gillain, who remained with him in that capacity for
two years. Each of the guards, as well
as Mr. Walker, carried two Kentucky rifles and two forty-five Colt
revolvers. The Indians were hostile and
the grizzly bears were fierce. The Piute
Indians, who were numerous, were known as the Hat Creek, Pit River, Fall River
and Dixon Valley Indians. Mr. Walker had
made settlement right after Captain Crook, of Fort Crook, had killed two
hundred and fifty Indians and captured Chief Shave Head. The land in that vicinity was surveyed in
1872 and Mr. Walker then went to the government land office at Marysville,
where he took up a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres and a preemption
claim of one hundred and sixty acres, locating the homestead on the quarter
section on which his home was already situated.
The first school in this locality was held in that same year in Burney
Valley, and there Jesse G. Walker, then a lad of thirteen years, received his
first schooling, though his mother had taught him at home for several
years. The family’s trading point was at
Red Bluff and every fall the father went with his ox wagons down to that place
and lay in his provisions for the winter.
During those eventful years Mr.
Walker and his son, Jesse G., were more like boon companions than father and
son, and the son recalls many interesting experiences they had together. Jesse G. Walker always did his full part as a
boy in yoking up and driving the oxen—in fact, he never drove a team of horses
until seventeen years of age. Mr. and
Mrs. Walker became the parents of five children. Phoebe became the wife of Peter H. Winters
and the mother of nine children, who are engaged in ranching and are still
living in the vicinity of Whitmore and Millville. Mary became the wife of Thomas Whittle, who
was a rancher in the Fall River Valley and died six months after his
marriage. Martha, who was the wife of M.
Zevely, a storekeeper at Fall River Mills, died
leaving five children. West, born in
Missouri in 1856, became a miner in California and died at Redding in October,
1925. He was married twice and left a
son and daughter by his first union and a daughter by his second marriage. Jesse G., the subject of this review, is the
other member of the family of John O. and Rebecca (Green) Walker. By a marriage, consummated in Virginia, Mr.
Walker became the father of eight children, all of whom came to California,
where they soon started out on their own account. Mrs. Rebecca Walker died at Hat Creek in
1878, at the age of sixty years, and then the father rented the home place at
Hat Creek and he and his son Jesse went to Oregon, where the latter entered
Monmouth College, a state school, from which he was graduated in the spring of
1883. He was the banner student of his
class, having done two years’ work in one year.
The father died at Hat Creek, California, in 1883, at the age of
eighty-eight years, and was buried beside his wife. He was everywhere known as “Uncle Johnny”
Walker, and was loved by all who knew him.
On one occasion a desperate character in Shasta County laid his plans to
rob Mr. Walker. Another member of the
gang, who knew “Uncle Johnny,” declared, “You are not going to rob that old
man,” and he was not molested.
Jesse G. Walker taught school in
Oregon from 1883 until 1910 in Klamath, Douglas, Jackson, Lake, Josephine and
Benton counties, and taught six months before graduating from college, in which
he kept up his studies and graduated at the head of his class. On June 3, 1910, he came to Quincy,
California, and during the following sixteen years he followed trapping, mining
and chopping. He is an expert faller and
ax man and stopped at no kind of work, his parents having taught him many years
ago that all work was honorable. He has
always been a reader and student, is well grounded in the basic principles of
the law and his decisions as justice of the peace have been marked by their
adherence to the law, as well as by their common sense and their fairness.
On August 2, 1886, in the town of
Union, Oregon, Mr. Walker was united in marriage to Miss Monona Jane Stewart,
to which union were born six children, namely:
Maud, who died at the age of two years, and was buried at Keno, Klamath
County, Oregon; Levi Owensby (“Owney”),
born in 1889, who was an electrician at Grants Pass, Oregon, and died in 1923;
Wesley Arnold, who is a veteran of the World War; Emma Clare, who is the wife
of Cal Jones, of Oakland, California, and is the mother of a daughter; Lucinda
Madge, who is the wife of Ben Stoner, of Aurora, Oregon; and Metta D., who is a very successful lawyer in Portland,
Oregon, also having charge of the Veterans’ Bureau for the entire state of
Oregon.
Mr. Walker is a member of Plumas
Lodge, No. 60, F. & A. M.; and Plumas Chapter No. 107, R. A. M., of which
he is high priest. He was made a Master
Mason in Quincy on February 16, 1920, and has made a close study of Masonry, so
that he served as the coach for the officers, as well as the candidates, of his
lodge. He is a constant student of
history, being particularly interested in the history of California and Oregon,
and of Shasta County. He became a member
of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1882, while in college, and still adheres
to that religious faith. He is a staunch
Republican in his political belief and cast his first presidential vote for
James A. Garfield in 1880. He is able to
tell many extremely interesting stories of the early days in this section of
California. He recalls that at the time
his family came here there were five hundred and fifty soldiers stationed at
Fort Crook, in the Fall River Valley, the Red men being both numerous and
hostile. At that time there were only
three women north of Millville, Shasta County, namely: Mrs. Staub, at Fort
Creek; Mrs. Littrelle, in Burney Valley, and Mrs.
Rebecca Walker, in the Hat Creek locality.
That was in 1863. About that time
John O. Walker bought from a squaw-man by the name of Whipple a claim which
extended forty miles north of the log house on it to ten miles south of
it. John O. Walker was a subscriber and
reader of the Sacramento Union as early as 1858.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 3 Pages 365-368. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.