Santa Clara County
Biographies
WILLIAM S. WALKER
WILLIAM S. WALKER. The population of Los Gatos, like that of all Western cities, is made up of all classes of people, each class being a type by itself, in containing many bright and interesting characters. Prominent among the representatives of the active, brainy and enterprising people of this city is W. S. Walker, who has a unique personality, a good share of the milk of human kindness, and is full of wit and humor. He is well known in journalistic circles, has acquired considerable notice as an author, and has achieved success in business lines. A son of William H. Walker, he was born May 20, 1839, in Macomb, Illinois. He comes of good old patriotic stock, his paternal great-grandfather having been a soldier in the Revolutionary army, while his grandfather, James Walker, a Kentucky planter, served in the War of 1812.
A native of Rockbridge County, Virginia, which was also the birthplace of his parents, William H. Walker spent his childhood days in that state. Growing into manhood, however, in Kentucky, he was reared to agricultural pursuits on the home plantation. Embarking in life for himself, he settled in Illinois, where he was employed in horticultural pursuits, establishing a nursery in Macomb. He subsequently resided for a few years in Keokuk County, Iowa, but returned to Illinois, where he spent his last years of earthly life. His wife whose maiden name was Ann Harris, was born in Tennessee, and died in Macomb, Illinois. Of the five children born of their union, four are living, W. S., the subject of this sketch, being the youngest.
Inheriting a large share of the patriotic zeal that animated his grandfather and great-grandfather, W. S. Walker, who had been brought up on the home farm in Illinois, freely offered his services to his country after breaking out of the Civil war. In April, 1861, he enlisted in Company K, Seventeenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, being the first man in Mason County to enlist, and was mustered in Peoria for a period of three years. The following year he took part in the siege of Fort Donelson and the Battle of Shiloh, but soon after, in May, 1862, was honorably discharged from the service on account of physical disability. In 1863 he endeavored to enlist in the Eighty-fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, but could not pass the physical examination.
In May, 1864, Mr. Walker came by way of Panama to California, and for two years resided in Sonoma County. Returning to Illinois by the same route in 1866, he established the first paper ever published in the Mason City, and edited it for several years, the paper being published at the present time. Selling out on June 15, 1874, Mr. Walker came again to the Pacific coast and opened a job printing office in Petaluma, California. Not satisfied with the results of his venture, he removed to Clinton, Missouri, in October of that year, and there purchased a small farm, intending to settled down as a tiller of the soil. The myriads of grasshoppers that sprung up the following summer made life such a burden on the farm that he exchanged his land for a printing office, and established the Henry County News at Clinton. Six weeks later he was induced to take charge of the Crete Sentinel, in Crete, Nebraska, but the patronage not being satisfactory Mr. Walker disposed of that paper, and removed to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he opened a job printing office. But there, also, he was affected by the grasshoppers scourge, these insects having the previous season ruined the crops of that section to such an extent that business was practically at a standstill. Therefore, in September, 1876, Mr. Walker made his third trip to California. After a brief stay in Ventura, he opened a job printing office in Petaluma. Diphtheria was raging to such an extent that four weeks later he removed to Cloverdale, Sonoma County, where he started a newspaper. Returning to Nebraska in the spring of 1877, Mr. Walker was a resident of Lincoln for a year. Going to Seward, Nebraska, in the spring of 1878, he was employed in journalistic work in that city until June, 1879, when he sold the Seward County Advocate, which he had been editing and publishing. Again making a trip to California, he returned to Cloverdale in the fall of 1879, and purchased his old paper mill, and managed it until the summer of 1880, when he sold it, and returned with his family, who in every instance accompanied him on his innumerable trips to and from the coast, to Lincoln, Nebraska. The following winter being so severe, Mr. Walker, with his family, returned to the more salubrious climate of this state in the spring of 1881. After looking about for a favorable location, he was advised to go to Saratoga, Santa Clara County, and while on his way to that city stopped off at Los Gatos, and was induced to settled here permanently. At once establishing the Los Gatos Weekly News, he conducted it successfully until March, 1885, when he sold out, and for a short time thereafter published a journal in Santa Cruz. Returning, however, to this city, Mr. Walker brought the Los Gatos Mail, which he enlarged, and published as the weekly until the spring of 1902, when he disposed of his newspaper interests and has since the retired from active business.
In his varied career Mr. Walker has been successful, his changes, though frequent, having invariably been financially advantageous, and he has acquired considerable property. In addition to owning a valuable block in Los Gatos, he is owner of two ranches, one in Monterey County and one in Santa Cruz County, both of them being productive and profitable estates. He has made good use of his literary talents, and as the author of two interesting volumes, "Hungry Land," and "Between the Tides," he has won an honored position among the writers of good literature, and become widely known to the reading public.
In Mason City, Illinois, Mr. Walker married Maggie Montross, a native of Ohio, and they became the parents of eight children, six of whom grew to years of maturity. W. G., a graduate of Northwestern University, Chicago Illinois, and afterward a druggist, died in Los Gatos, at the age of thirty-one years; Effie, it a Normal graduate, and subsequently a teacher in the public schools, died in 1899; Lincoln died in 1898; Walter died in 1900; Hon. George S. Walker, now a member of the California legislature; and Leland H., living at home. Politically Mr. Walker is a Republican, and socially he is a member of the E. O. C. Ord Post No. 82, the G. A. R. both Mr. and Mrs. Walker belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Transcribed
by Nancy Pratt Melton.
Source: Guinn,
Prof. J. M. , A. M., History of the State of
California and Biographical Record of Coast Counties, California. Pages
1014-1017. Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago.
1914.
© 2015 Nancy Pratt Melton.