Brown County IN Archives Biographies.....Walker, Samuel 1847 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com March 4, 2007, 4:54 pm

Author: B. F. Bowen (1904)

SAMUEL WALKER.

   The well-known gentleman whose name furnishes the caption of this article
enjoys the distinction of being one of Brown county's oldest native sons and is
also an honored representative of one of its earliest and most highly esteemed
pioneer families. In his veins flows the blood of a long line of sterling
Scotch-Irish ancestors, and he traces his genealogy in this country to an early
period in the history of Virginian colonial days. The first of his ancestors of
whom he has any definite knowledge is his great-grandfather, Isaac Walker, who
was born in Virginia, and there spent his life as a prosperous tiller of the
soil, a vocation to which the majority of his descendants to the present day
have followed. Isaac Walker died in his native commonwealth, leavings a number
of children, among whom was a son by the name of Jacob, who left Virginia in an
early day and went to Henry county, Kentucky, where he married and engaged in
the pursuit of agriculture. Thinking to better his condition in the newly opened
country of south central Indiana, Jacob Walker, in the year 1830, brought his
family into what is now Brown county, moving the entire distance in a wagon
drawn by an ox team. In those days there were no settlements south of Nineveh,
Johnson county, and from that town he was obliged to cut a road to the land on
Salt Creek, Hamlin township, on which he decided to locate, a distance of ten
miles through a dense forest into whose somber depths but few white men had
previously penetrated. After much laborious exertion he finally reached his
destination and in due time erected a diminutive log cabin, which being done, he
at once addressed himself to the more formidable task of clearing and improving
a farm. In the course of years his work was accomplished, his death occurring
when he was about seventy-five years old, and from that remote period to the
present day the land on which this sturdy pioneer settled has been in the
possession of his descendants. At the time of Jacob Walker's arrival in Brown
county his family consisted of a wife and six children, five sons, Franklin,
Landy, Zephaniah, Samuel and Charles, and a daughter, Betsy. Charles Walker was
then a sturdy youth of seventeen. Four years later he married a young lady by
the name of Jane Rariden, and immediately thereafter entered a tract of land in
Hamlin township, two miles distant, and to which he took his bride, the two
riding a horse, on which was also carried a feather bed and what few cooking
utensils were needed in the new cabin home. Charles Walker was a man of strong
physical mold and of great industry, and so effective were his labors that
within a comparatively short time he had a goodly portion of his land cleared
and in cultivation. He improved a fine eighty-acre farm, on which he made many
substantial improvements, and continued to cultivate the same until his death,
which occurred in the year 1889, surviving his wife for thirty-one years. His
second wife was Nancy Burton, who still survives. Charles Walker was a
successful farmer and public-spirited citizen and labored for the material
advancement and moral good of the community. He reared a family of children,
namely: Jacob, Henry T., Sally, Samuel, William, Zephaniah and Mary Ellen, the
youngest dying in childhood. Two of the sons, Jacob and Henry, served with
distinction in the late Civil war as members of Company D, Eighty-second Indiana
Infantry, and both died from the effects of army exposure before the close of
the war.

   Samuel Walker, to a brief review of whose life the remainder of this article
is devoted, was born on the homestead near his present home in Brown county,
February 3, 1847. Reared on the farm and early made familiar with the rugged
experiences of the same, he grew up to habits of industry and at the proper age
entered the district schools, which he attended winter months until a youth in
his teens. When eighteen years of age he began making his own way by working as
a farm hand, and to this kind of labor he devoted the ensuing five
years,-husbanding his earnings the meanwhile with the object in view of engaging
in agricultural pursuits upon his own responsibility. On January 4, 1873, he
chose a wife and helpmeet in the person of Miss Carolina Virginia Gosser, who
was born June 9, 1853, in Brown county, being the only child of John and Jane
(Poulton) Gosser, natives of Maryland and Virginia respectively. These parents
were married in Ohio, and in 1850 moved to Brown county, where the father
purchased land and developed a farm, upon which he lived until entering the
service of his country during the war of the Rebellion as a private in the One
Hundred and Forty-fifth Indiana Volunteers. He was a good soldier and met his
death in a hospital at Chattanooga, Tennessee, while bravely upholding the honor
of the flag.

   Immediately following his marriage Mr. Walker engaged in farming on the
Gosser homestead and has ever since made this vocation his life work, owning at
this time an improved and most productive place of two hundred and eighty-three
acres in Brown county. His present commodious residence was erected in 1889, and
the fine orchards and other substantial improvements are the result of his own
industry, thrift and excellent management, his home being attractive in all the
term implies, and, as already indicated, one of the most desirable rural homes
of the county.

   Mr. Walker has made a careful study of the science of agriculture and is
familiar with every phase of the same, being enterprising and progressive as a
tiller of the soil, successful as a fruit grower and stock raiser and an
authority upon everything relating to modern and advanced farming. The county
fair grounds are located on his place and the success of the agricultural
association is due as much to his interest and efforts as to those of any other
man. The Brown county fair is the outgrowth of a local exhibit of the products
of Hamlin township, and for three years it was held as a free fair. It was so
successful from the start that" a company was organized with some fifty
stockholders and for nine years it has had annual exhibits in September with
good exhibits and suitable premiums, the attendance being such as to encourage
its promoters. Benefits to the farmers are readily traceable to its influence
and in many ways it has contributed to the social and material advancement of
the county.

   Politically Mr. Walker is a representative Democrat of the old Jefferson and
Jackson school and for many years he has been an influential factor in party
circles. He served two terms as trustee of Hamlin township, and in 1891 was
honored by being elected to the higher and more responsible office of county
treasurer, which position he held for a period of four years, having been chosen
his own successor. As custodian of the public funds he discharged his duties
faithfully and efficiently, his administration of the office being able and
business-like, and it is conceded by the people, irrespective of party, that the
county has never been served by a more capable or judicious official. During his
incumbency he resided in Nashville, and his deputy while in office was his son,
Estal E., who proved an able assistant and a young business man of great promise.

   Mr. Walker has been a member of the county council ever since the creation of
the position, and his influence in directing the affairs of the same has done
much to make the position accomplish the purposes for which it was intended. He
has manifested Ian abiding interest in all public questions pertaining to the
welfare of his county, encourages to the extent of his ability every laudable
enterprise and progressive measure for the benefit of the people; and as a
citizen is energetic and wide-awake, discharging his every duty and the
responsibilities incumbent upon him in a manner befitting the true American who
has the good of his fellow men at heart.

   Mr. and Mrs. Walker are the parents of four, children, whose names are as
follows: Professor Earnest Gosser, graduate of the State. Normal School at Terre
Haute and the State University, and at this time the efficient and popular
principal of the Lebanon high school; Estal Earl, who received a business
training in the Commercial College of Lexington, Kentucky, and now holds the
position of bookkeeper with the firm of Tripp & Company, North Vernon, Indiana;
Eustis S. is pursuing his studies in the high school at Lebanon, and Fanny J. is
still a member of the home circle.

   Mr. Walker spared no pains in educating his children, and has every reason to
feel proud of their attainments and advancement, also of the high esteem in
which they are held; the oldest son has already reached a position of prominence
in educational circles and, judging from his present progress, it is safe to
predict for him a brilliant career among the leading school men of Indiana. The
others have also made the most of their opportunities, and in years to come they
will doubtless achieve marked success in their respective spheres of endeavor
and add greatly to the honorable reputation the family has always borne. Mrs.
Walker is a lady of intelligence and beautiful Christian character and to her
judicious counsel and earnest co-operation her husband is indebted for no little
of the success by which his career has been marked. Both are highly respected in
the social world and, as members of the Christian church, their influence has
been a power for good among their numerous friends and associates.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY
INDIANA

INCLUDING BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GOVERNORS AND OTHER REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS OF INDIANA

ILLUSTRATED

1904

B. F. Bowen PUBLISHER


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