My Genealogy Hound

JAMES C. WALKER, a son of Clark and Esther (Caldwell) Walker, was born in Brocton, Chautauqua county, New York, August 29, 1842. Deacon Joseph Walker (great-grandfather) was born February 10, 1739, and died December 15, 1813, in Massachusetts. Samuel Walker (grandfather) was a native of Massachusetts, being born in 1773. In 1828 he came to Brocton and engaged in farming, a vocation which he pursued for many years. For many years he was a consistent member of the Presbyterian church, and died in 1843 consoled in its faith. Clark Walker was born at Hopkinton, Mass., in 1813, and came to Chautauqua county with his father when fifteen years of age. He settled in Portland, which has been his home ever since. When a young man he learned the carpenter’s and joiner’s trade and employed himself thereby for some time, but since 1860 farming has been his chief vocation. Now in his seventy-eighth year, he personally superintends the workings of his farm and vineyard. For sixty years he has been identified with the Brocton Baptist church, in which he is a deacon.

Since the organization of the Republican party he has affiliated with it, but he is a strong temperance man and his sympathies lean towards that class of legislation. Mr. Walker has filled town offices, but has never entered politics at large. In 1837 he married Esther Caldwell, a daughter of Samuel Caldwell, and, although of Scotch-Irish extraction, has for some generations been identified with American history. Her mother, Mary Clyde, was a prominent woman on account of her mental attainments and skill in medicine. Mrs. Walker is a sister of Samuel Caldwell, whose sketch appears elsewhere. They had seven children.

James C. Walker was reared on the farm and educated in the public schools and Westfield academy. Upon leaving the academy he taught school for a few years and then returned to the farm, where he has resided ever since. His fine place, forty acres in extent, has a vineyard upon it from which a good yield of luscious fruit is secured.

In 1870 he wedded Lydia Tinkham, a daughter of Jacob Tinkham, who lived in the town of Pomfret. They have two children, one son and one daughter: Benjamin, aged seventeen, and Jessie N., a child of five.