San Francisco County
CHARLES HENRY WALKER, D.D.S.
CHARLES
HENRY WALKER, D.D.S.’ of Oakland, was born in Albion, Michigan, February 21,
1849, a son of Sidney and Harriet (Walton) Walker, both natives of Genesee
county, New York, and deceased in
Michigan, the father at the age of sixty-one and the mother eighty-two. Grandfather Sardus
Walker lived to be over seventy, and the other grandparents on both sides lived
to old age. Of the thirteen children of
Sidney and Harriet Walker the following reached maturity: Harriet, born about
1821, married Heman Lewis, died in Michigan, in 1889;
Julia, by marriage Mrs. Henry R. Cook, of Homer, Michigan; Martha, Mrs. E. R.
Cook, also of Homer; Mary, Mrs. Elias Richardson, of the same place; Clara,
deceased at the age of thirty; Emma, at thirty-five; Cyrenus,
at twenty-eight.
C. H.
Walker, the subject of this sketch, the youngest of the family, was educated in
the public schools to the age of twelve, when he began to help on a farm. At fifteen he engaged with
Dr. G. W. Stone, a dentist of Albion and eminent in his profession, remaining
with him as a student and partner twelve years. During the early years of this connection he
improved his education by attending classes in Albion College, and was admitted
to partnership in 1870, under the style of Stone & Walker.
In
1876 Mr. Walker left Albion for the Lake Superior mining region, and practiced
his profession at the Calumet Mine and in Hancock, Michigan. He built up a lucrative practice in that
section and accumulated a small fortune in about six years. With bright
anticipations of gathering a larger fortune in the mining regions farther West,
he moved to Leadville, Colorado. There
he practiced his profession and became interested in mining property, with the
net result of losing in one year over $20,000, the fruit of twenty years of
labor and thrift. He then moved to
Denver, and practiced dentistry there with success and profit for a few
years. He bought 320 acres of land while
in Denver, but the glamour of agreat fortune in the
mining regions of Alaska bewitched him, and turning all he possessed into cash
he set out for the Alaska mines, May 22, 1886.
At the Juno mine in Sitka he found the same opportunities as in
Leadville, Colorado, and though he had not so much to lose, he lost all he had,
which made both experiences virtually identical. With no further hope of retrieving his
fortune by speculating in mines, he returned to San Francisco, and before the
close of 1886 located in Oakland as assistant to R. E. Cole, D.D. S., one of
the most eminent practitioners of the art and science of dentistry here or
elsewhere. Having filled that position
for two years on salary, when Dr. Cole decided to go abroad, he purchased his
office and outfit in 1888, and has since continued the business on his own
account, and seems to be in a fair way of again making, by close attention to a
lucrative practice, the fortune which he has been unable to grasp by the
quicker and more alluring but less reliable method of speculating in alleged
“bonanza” mines. His practice is estimated
to be worth perhaps $10,000 a year, and he is already the owner of a nice home
in this city, besides an orange grove of twenty acres in Oroville, Butte county.
Dr.
Walker was married in Copper Harbor on Lake Superior, in August, 1872, to Miss
Louise Guilbault, born in Mackinaw, Michigan,
December 31, 1847, a daughter of Edward and _____ (Jingras)
Guilbault, both natives of Montreal, of French
descent. The father died at about the
age of sixty; the mother is living, aged about sixty-five.
Dr.
and Mrs. Walker have two children: Minnie Belle, born May 18, 1873; Florence
Julia, February 6, 1876.
Transcribed by Donna L.
Becker.
Source: “The Bay of San
Francisco,” Vol. 2, Pages 639-640, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
© 2006 Donna L.
Becker.