Albemarle-Louisa-Fauquier County Virginia USGenWeb Archives Biographies.....Walker, Charles Henry 1845 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.rootsweb.com/~archreg/vols/00001.html#0000031 February 17, 2008, 5:13 pm

Author: Leonard Wilson  (1916)

CHARLES HENRY WALKER

AT the close of our great Civil War, there came to the town of Charlottesville,
Virginia, from Louisa County, a young man of twenty who had been a gallant
Confederate soldier and who, in common with other Virginians of his day, young
and old, had to take up life under conditions to which the people of that State
were unused. The times were evil. Capital for business was extremely limited,
and business was confined almost entirely to the simplest necessities. Under
such conditions the openings for young men were not only limited in number but
offered scant pay. This young soldier had no equipment of capital and no
experience of business. He did have, however, industry, good courage, good
principles and a business ability which he himself did not at that time realize.
He accepted  a position at $50 a year and board. This was the starting point of
the career of Charles Henry Walker, who can look back over fifty years of a busy
and successful life which has resulted not only in the most substantial business
success but in his gaining the confidence and esteem of the community in which
so large a part of those fifty years has been spent. He did not stay long on the
$50 salary, as he obtained a much better position with T. J. Wertenbaker, at
that time the leading clothier and merchant tailor of the town, with whom he
remained for some seven or eight years.

    Let us go back a little and take up this young man from the beginning of
life. He was born at Louisa Court House on July 29, 1845, a son of John W. and
Martha (Hughson) Walker. His father was a railroad contractor of the firm of
Mason and Walker. To those old Virginians familiar with the building of the
Virginia Central Railroad, now the Chesapeake and Ohio, the names of these
contractors are familiar. His maternal grandfather was Samuel Hughson, of the
Green Springs section of Louisa County. His paternal grandfather, Austin Walker,
lived in Piedmont, Virginia, and was father of a numerous family. Sometime
between 1825 and 1830 he moved with his entire family to the West, with the
exception of two sons and one daughter, who remained in Virginia. During the
Civil War, communication having become interrupted, Mr. Walker's people in
Virginia lost all trace of their people in the West.

    As a boy, Mr. Walker attended John P. Thompson's Private School at Louisa;
from there he went to the famous old Dinwiddie School at Greenwood, Virginia,
and was a student of the Crenshaw School in Amelia County, when, in 1863, at the
age of eighteen, he entered the Confederate Army. His army berth was one of the
hardest; he became a member of that famous corps commanded by Colonel John S.
Mosby, the greatest partisan officer of the war, which command won an immortal
reputation, under the name of Mosby's Battalion.

    No man unfamiliar with the history of the Civil War can even imagine what
Mosby's men went through. They literally lived in the saddle, and though sparse
in numbers, were young, active, resolute and full of resource. They made a
veritable hornet's nest of "Mosby's Confederacy," and it required a Federal
force from fifteen to twenty times their number to keep them in check.

    On August 13, 1864, while taking part in the capture of a wagon train at
Berryville, Mr. Walker was severely wounded, while in the forefront of a charge
on a body of infantry that had taken refuge behind a stone wall near the town of
Berryville. He was within few feet of this wall when a minnie ball from an
enemy's musket shattered his left arm near the elbow, and passing through his
coat, barely grazed his body. On reaching his home surgeons were called in, but
eight months later Mr. Walker had not sufficiently recovered and was unable to
return to his command. While he did not suffer the misfortune of losing the arm,
the injury robbed it of its normal strength and usefulness.

    His early business experience has been referred to. These years of clerkship
were years of training and of finding himself. In January, 1875, then in his
thirtieth year, Mr. Walker had "found" himself. He decided to venture into
business on his own account, and he established himself at Rectortown, Virginia,
in a mercantile business which he conducted with a large measure of success for
twenty-two years. His capital outgrew the needs of his own business, which led
to his organizing, in association with D. P. Wood, of Warrenton, the hardware
business of D. P. Wood & Company, of which Mr. Walker is a half owner, and which
has continued down to the present day.

    The pleasant years of his young manhood had been spent in. Charlottesville,
and for that place he had formed a strong personal attachment which led, upon
his retirement from business at Rectortown, in 1897, to his return to
Charlottesville, which has since been his home.

    He did not return to a life of idleness. His physical strengths was yet in
its prime and his ability had been ripened until it was equal to the control of
any business proposition, and so he, quickly became interested in other
enterprises in Charlottesville, becoming President of the Charlottesville
Hardware Company, which he established with Mr. J. E. Wood in 18S9, and which
has grown under his management into a very large and successful business. He
became a director of the Albemarle National Bank, and a director in various
other enterprises. He was appointed City Treasurer, and has held that position
down to the present time by successive re-elections. In the business world of
that community no man stands higher than he, whether judged from the standpoint
of ability or integrity.

    Soon after his return to Charlottesville in 1897, he became a member of John
Bowie Strange Camp, the local camp of Confederate veterans. His comrades soon
recognized his ability for commander of the camp. They honored him with this
office, which position he held for two years. He declined to serve longer,
though unanimously elected for the third term.

    He is affiliated with a number of fraternal societies, including the Masons,
Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, and others. For the past fifteen years he has
been an Elder of the Christian Church, and for a number of years, Superintendent
of its Sunday-school. In everything bearing upon the material or moral progress
of the community he takes an active part, both his help and his advice being
highly appreciated.

    His residence is the handsome old Colonial home of ex-Governor Gilmer, and
there he dispenses a kindly hospitality to those who come within the cheerful
atmosphere of what is a true home. The Walker building, erected by him to meet
the needs of the increasing trade of the Charlottesville Hardware Company, which
is the largest and most modernly equipped business house in the city, stands
upon the spot on which stood the house in which Mr. Walker commenced his career.
Perhaps sentiment had something to do with his building that house in that
place. Certainly he admits that it was a matter of some little pride with him
that he was able to do so.

    He was married in Danville, Virginia, in May, 1873, to Roberta Carroll, who
was born in Albemarle County, daughter of Major Andrew Carroll and Mattie C.
(Payne) Carroll.

    But what about the real man? After all, it is that real man known only to
the few who have seen the inside of his heart that counts. Material possessions
pass away, and if the possessor of great estates has accumulated no other
capital than material things, he comes to the end in poverty of soul. It is
proper, therefore, to show this man as he is known to one who was thrown with
him through a most intimate association of seven years in the relation of
pastor, and it cannot be done in any way so well as in the exact words of that
man in a recent letter. He says:

    "Soon after I went to Charlottesville, Mr. C. H. Walker, who had formerly
lived there, returned with his wife and adopted daughter to make Charlottesville
their home. I soon became very much attached to all of them. Mrs. Walker has a
great capacity for friendship and I here want to pay tribute to her as one of
the most attentive and ready friends a young preacher ever had. I was frequently
in their home, and it was always a great pleasure to me.

    "Mr. Walker and I were thrown together very often. By seeking each other's
company, we managed to spend much time together. I think no man could love
another more than I loved him. My boyish heart just opened to the full with such
ardent affection that the years of our separation have not diminished it. 1 love
him to-day as I did then with a great abiding love. Such a heart as his could
not resist an affection like that. He has responded with a love as warm and
tender as a woman. Through all these years he has been my constant friend.

    "Mr. Walker, though a very busy man, was a great help to me in the church.
He took great interest in it and was present at all the meetings. Without him,
the church building erected during my ministry, could not have been built. He
gave much time and money. He has been the most influential man in the church.
Though forced forward in leadership, he has not tried to have the pre-eminence,
but his humility and consideration of others are striking features of his
character and have profoundly impressed those who have labored with him. He is a
genuine Christian.

    "He has also had a large place in the community life. With the city's
interest at heart, he has welcomed and encouraged whatever was for its good. He
is one of its most successful business men. He is a good citizen whose influence
has always been for the moral progress of his community.

    "Mr. Walker is almost an ideal man. His faults are few and insignificant. He
has a good clear mind and a great loving heart and the world is better by his
having lived in it."

    This testimony shows the real man, and proves that his success in material
things has not been greater than his success in that better life which is the
greatest contribution that any man can make to the community in which he lives.

    In July, 1911, Mr. Walker was bereaved of his wife, the faithful companion
who had lived with him for nearly forty years.

    His second wife, Mrs. Mattie (Terrell) Wills, the daughter of N. A. Terrell,
and the widow of F. Gary Wills, though some twenty-five years younger, is a most
considerate helpmate, and gives every assurance of comforting Mr. Walker in his
declining years. They were married on December 10, 1912.

    Walker is a very old family name-one of the oldest. Genealogists disagree as
to the derivation, one school holding to the opinion that it was derived from
the Xorse "Valka," which means "a foreigner." In Dutch appear the forms
"Walkart" and "Walker." In the Anglo-Saxon appear the forms "Walcher" and
"Wealhere," meaning "a stranger soldier," practically the same meaning as the
Norse "Valka." The other school of genealogists hold to the belief that the name
was derived from an occupation. Before the introduction of rollers, when cloth
was made, it had to be trodden under foot. The Anglo-Saxon word for this was
"Walcere," which the English translated "a fuller," and in time "fuller" and
"walker" became synonymous terms, and "the walker" became a regular occupation.
It is likely that both claims are correct, and that some of the Walker names
come from one source and some from the other.

    The name was a very popular one in England, and the number of Walker
families grew apace. In the nine hundred years or so which have elapsed since
family names were first adopted there have been granted to the Walker families
in England over fifty Coats of Arms. They have held innumerable positions of
influence and importance with a number of titles, there having been at times as
many as a half dozen Baronets who had titles, in different branches of the family.

    Between 1625 and 1655, something like fifty different Walkers came over from
England to Virginia. A majority of these came over from the southern counties of
England, though one or two of them are known to have come from Yorkshire. In the
Revolutionary War, the Virginia Walkers were represented by more than seventy
soldiers, ranging in rank from private to colonel. In "The National Cyclopaedia
of American Biography" over sixty Walkers have been given place. They cover
every possible pursuit in life. Amasa Walker was one of our greatest political
economists; three or four of them have been Governors of States; a half dozen
Congressmen; a half dozen Senators; several soldiers; naval officers; an
astronomer of note; a singer; a philanthropist; William Walker, the Prince of
Filibusters, known as the "Gray-eyed Man of Destiny," and Francis A. Walker, the
greatest statistician that America has ever known.

    In the absence of complete records and the official registration of births
and deaths, it is very difficult to establish definitely the line of descent of
a member of a family so numerous, and with which the pages of Virginia history
fairly bristle as to mention, but always in disconnected paragraphs. Even the
high-class magazines dealing with genealogical questions have to assume some
things. There are reasonable grounds for believing that the family to which Mr.
Walker belongs was founded in Virginia by John and Thomas Walker, believed to
have been brothers, who came from Middlesex, England, probably between 1650 and
1660.

    The will of Joseph Walker, of St. Margaret's Parish, Westminster, London,
County Middlesex, probated in 1666, devised his property to his kinsman, "John
Walker, now living in Virginia." This John Walker was a very prominent man,
known as Colonel John Walker. He died about 1671, leaving six daughters. Colonel
Thomas Walker, said to have been his brother, also a very prominent man, left
sons. One of these sons was John, who was the father of Dr. Thomas Walker, born
in 1715, a noted explorer who saw Kentucky in 1750, and is said to have been the
first white man who ever saw that section. Dr. Thomas Walker settled, certainly
prior to 1742, in a section of country out of which has been carved the Counties
of Orange, Louisa and Albemarle. When the old Fredericksville Parish was
organized, in 1742, Dr. Thomas Walker was one of the first vestrymen, and in
later years was succeeded in the vestry by three of his sons, Thomas, Jr., John
and Francis.

    Colonel John Walker, son of Dr. Thomas Walker, served in the Revolutionary
War on Washington's Staff, and a younger son, Francis, also rose to be a colonel.

    Rev. James Maury married a Miss Walker, of this family, and named one of his
sons Walker Maury. Matthew Maury also named one of his sons Walker Maury.

    This old Walker family lived at Belvoir, and Walker's Church (named for
them) was on the road from Orange Court House to Charlottesville.

    On May 8, 1775, on a list of the Committee of Safety for Louisa County,
appears as first man, Thomas Walker. Whether this was Dr. Walker, or his son
Thomas, who was then probably a man of thirty, cannot be definitely stated.

    Dr. Thomas Walker is believed to have been the progenitor of all the Walker
families of the section from which C. H. Walker comes, and the probabilities are
that C. H. Walker is in the fifth generation from him. In the absence, however,
of recorded evidence, this statement cannot be made as a definite fact, though
it is probably true.

    The Coat of Arms of the Walker family of County Middlesex is thus described:

    Per pale argent and sable on a chevron between three crescents as many
annulets, all counterchanged.

    Crest: On a mount vert a greyhound sejant per pale argent and sable; the
argent powdered with crescents azure; the sable with bezants, and collared or.

    A peculiar feature of the Walker Coats of Arms in Great Britain is that a
very great number of them show in their crests a greyhound. The only way that
one can account for this is that a majority of the families evidently claimed
(or rather looked back to) a common ancestry.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

MAKERS OF AMERICA
BIOGRAPHIES OF LEADING MEN OF THOUGHT AND ACTION

THE MEN WHO CONSTITUTE THE BONE AND SINEW OF AMERICAN PROSPERITY AND LIFE

VOLUME II

By
LEONARD WILSON,
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ASSISTED BY PROMINENT HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL WRITERS
Illustrated with many full page engravings
B. F. JOHNSON, INC.
CITY OF WASHINGTON, U. S. A.
1916

Copyright, 1916
by
B. F. Johnson, Inc.


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