DR. J.P. WALKER
Page 27

Dr. J. P. Walker, one of the most prominent physicians of Mason County, was born in Adair County, Kentucky, April 6th, 1826. The family from which he is descended came to Virginia when it was a young colony from Londonderry, Ireland, and gave their name to Walker's Creek in that state when they settled among the Indians. The posterity of the first family have spread over the Western and Southern States extensively. Honorable Pinkney H. Walker, of the Supreme Court of Illinois, stands at the head of the generation and is custodian of the family genealogy and history. Dr. Walker's father, Joseph Culton Walker, the son of James Walker and Ann Walker, of Walker's Creek, Virginia, came to Kentucky in 1794, being a child. His mother, Lucretia Fletcher, (on her mother's side a Casey) belonged to a family that endured the perils of the "dark and bloody ground" in company with Daniel Boone. There were five others in the family, viz: Amanda Pauline, Julia Ann and Nancy Louisa, twins, William Wallace and Robert Fletcher. William W. now lives at Walker's Grove in Mason County, and Robert Fletcher is in Washington Territory. The remainder are dead. Joseph Culton was a farmer and also a teacher, and he removed to Illinois and settled in Sangamon County in 1830, near the place now called Middletown, in Logan County. After seven years he moved to Irish Grove, Menard County, where he died in 1841, in his fifty-sixth year. The doctor carried his mother back to Kentucky overland, and remained there working for four dollars per month to get money to convey him again to Illinois. When he returned he worked on the farm, taught school and pursued, as well as he could unaided, the study of medicine. In 1846 he enlisted in Company F, Fourth Illinois Volunteers under Colonel Ed. Baker, and was at the siege of Vera Cruz and battle of Ceorro Gordo, being a second sergeant in his company. When he got back to Menard County he was elected assessor and treasurer, and then was enabled for the first time to take the books, some of which he had carried through Mexico in his knapsack, and begin in a systematic manner his favorite study, under Dr. J.G. Rogers, of Petersburg. He first began to practice in Athens in March, 1849, but in July of the same year moved to Walker's Grove, Mason county. On the 3d of July, 1849, he was married to Miss Martha E. Towne. In 1851 his mother died at his house in the sixty-third year of her age. In 1853 his wife died, and on December 6, 1854, he married Miss Margaret Ann Walker, daughter of William H. Walker, of Lancaster, Iowa, whose mother was a Harris, and both from the old Virginia stock. In 1857 the doctor joined with others in laying out Mason City, and in 1859 he moved here. In 1861, under the first call for volunteers, he enlisted and was made captain of Company K, Seventeenth Illinois Infantry and was in the battles of Fredricktown, Fort Donaldson and Shiloh. He then resigned and assisted in raising the Eighty-fifth Regiment, in which he was appointed surgeon and afterwards lieutenant-colonel, in which capacity he served until after the battle of Chicamauga, when he returned to Mason City and resumed his practice. In 1865 it was proposed to erect a monument to the departed soldiers, and Dr. Walker was made president of the building committee. Voluntary contributions to the amount of $2,700 were received, but this amount falling short by $1,800, the committee, Dr. Walker, J.L. Hastings, and W.I. Kincaid, joined by D.W. Riner, H.T. Strawn, J.S. Baner, Nelson Warnock, H.C. Burnham, E. Hiram Sikes and John Pritchett, made up the lacking amount, and the work was completed, as will be seen by a lithograph in this atlas. Dr. Walker's family consists of the following children, named in the order of their ages, all by his present wife, viz: Willie Philander, Mary Pauline, Robert Lincoln, Anna Harris, James Stewart, Joseph Rice, Eliza Lucretia and John Sheridan Grant, all now living in their attractive home, of which a sketch is given on another page. The Doctor is now engaged in a large and lucrative practice in company with Dr. John W. Spear, a rising young physician. He has made surgery a special study, and has performed the greater part of the important operations in this and adjoining counties. He is also often called in consultation with the best physicians in the most critical cases. He is honored as much for his qualities as a man as for his professional skill.

1874 Atlas Index

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