Sonoma County Biographies

The subject of this sketch, although much of a traveler in his time, is by no means to be confronted with the noted pedestrians of the day, deriving their subsistence from their powers of endurance while "walking." On the contrary, having passed through more of life's vicissitudes than is usually allotted to man - his history reading almost like a romance of adventures - he is now settled down into the role of a quiet, substantial, unambitious farmer, content, like Shakespeare's "Colin," to "owe no man anything, to earn that he eats and wears, and to own no favors from any man." He is a genuine Missourian, being born in Jackson County in that State the 5th day of February, 1826, his age at present writing being close on to fifty-three years. He has enjoyed the pleasures of a married life since November 6, 1851, when he was joined in holy wedlock to Miss Ellen Morin, by whom he has seven children, four sons and three daughters; two daughters dead, namely, Mary J. Walker and Ella D.; the living are: Harriett Jane, Joel M., John L., Edward L., and Willis Y. At fourteen years of age he left his native home, when (in 1840) accompanying his father's family, which at that time numbered nine souls, he crossed the plains, traveling with the American Fur Company, Captain Dripps in command, to Green River, where all the mountaineers rendezvoused, to sell their furs and buy clothing, ammunition, etc., for another year. Captain Dripps made his trips every year with about forty carts, drawn by mules, to the Rocky Mountains, leaving the rendezvous on Green River. J. P. Walker, Father Desmith, and three missionary families, Clark, Smith, Littlejohn, and their wives, no children, with two old mountaineers as guides, traveled westward until they arrived at Fort Hall, on Snake River. This fort was owned by the Hudson Bay Company. After resting there a day, they started on their journey, arriving at Fort Boise, another Hudson Bay trading-post. The three Presbyterian missionary families, being more wearied than the others, stopped to spend the Winter. The Walker family arrived in the Willamette Valley, September 11, 1840, there then being a Methodist mission under the ministerial charge of Rev. Jason Lee. The Walker Family, headed by the father, Joel P. Walker, remained and planted a crop that Fall, but became soon dissatisfied with the country. A portion of Commodore Wilkes' crew, engaged in exploring the Pacific Coast, arrived in Oregon. Commodore Wilkes traveled over the Willamette Valley, stayed one night with the Walker family. He was a very nice gentleman. When leaving Oregon, in 1841, he lost one of his ships, the old "Peacock," which was wrecked on the bar at the mouth of the Columbia River. Wilkes sent a portion of the crew by land to California, Lieutenant Emmons in command; J. P. Walker's family came with them to Captain Sutter's Fort, far-famed and well-known as the locale of Marshall's discovery of gold on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. Coming at so early a date, the Walkers may be fully esteemed worthy the title of "pioneers." They reached here October 19, 1841, when Sutter had been at the fort, named after him, about one year. No crop had been raised, and they all had to keep soul and body together was poor beef and what little wild-fowl game that could be felled by the wary hunter's shot. Early in the spring of 1842, the family moved to Yount's Ranch, in what is now known as Napa County, it then being a component part of the district of Sonoma. Mr. Walker's mother, Mrs. Mary Walker, and a sister named Martha Young, were the first adventuresome white women who had "come the plains across," and were at the time the only ones in the State. The family remained in Napa Valley until the Spring of 1843, when, owing to the disordered affairs of the government, John's father returned to Oregon, where his children might obtain an education. He went with a party of forty men, in May, driving about three thousand head of cattle. On their way they were almost daily encountered by hostile bands of thieving Indians, who managed to kill and steal a few of the stock, but none of the party lost their lives. When about half-way on their route the party met a company on its way to California, including Captain Hastings, J. M. Hudspeth, and others. They reached the settlements of Oregon July 15, 1843, and Joel P. Walker, located in the Willamette Valley, near Salem, where he embarked in farming and so continued until 1848. In this year, learning of the discoveries of gold and the change of government in California, he returned, and settled near Napa City, taking the coast route by water via San Francisco. John, however, came by land, in September, 1848, and at once proceeded to the mines on the American River, and followed the business of mining there until June, 1849, when he came to where Sacramento City now stands and opened a hotel, which he kept for about four months. Many old Californians recollect the "Missouri House," which was the first hotel opened in Sacramento. At the expiration of this brief period of landlording he joined fortunes with his uncle, Capt. J. R. Walker, and went on a gold-prospecting trip to the southern part of the State, through the country which his uncle traversed in 1833, a portion of which still bears the name of "Walker's Pass." John Walker having spent some three months in this pursuit, with varying success, returned north and brought up at his father's place in Napa valley; here he remained until 1830, when he came to Sonoma County and settled in Santa Rosa Valley. In that year he built the first redwood house in the valley, near where the town of Sebastopol is now; in 1851 he, in company with Joseph Morgan Miller, opened the first merchandising store in this county, outside of the town of Sonoma, and the first postoffice of the adjacent country was kept in the old house now standing, at the rear of his present dwelling in Analy township, Mr. Miller being the appointed postmaster; since that period he has been engaged in stock-raising and farming, and now owns a four thousand-acre tract of land, from which he derives a handsome yearly income. His portrait will be found in this work, also that of his uncle, Capt. Joseph R. Walker.