| HISTORY OF DECATUR COUNTY
S. F. WALKER. S. F. Walker was for four years editor of the Lamoni Gazette and a members of the firm of Walker & Hansen, owners and pub lishers of that paper. He was also known as an author of considerable repute and was a highly esteemed citizen of Decatur county. His birth occurred in Ohio in 1831, although his father was born in New Hampshire and his mother in England. The maternal grandfather at one time owned a farm which is now a part of Cincinnati and the parents of our subject settled there when there was but one brick house in that city. They subsequently removed to a farm twenty miles up the Ohio river and there the maternal grandfather laid out the town of New Richmond, where the birth of our subject occurred. In his youth S. F. Walker attended the common schools and Clermont Academy but in 1850, when nineteen years of age, he came west, continuing on his way until he reached the mouth of the [211] Kansas river. That region of the country was then inhabited by Indians and much of the west had not yet been settled by whites. Returning eastward, Mr. Walker went up the Illinois river to La Salle, thence by stage to Chicago and from that city made the journey to Kalamazoo, Michigan, in a farm wagon. Some time later he went by way of the great lakes to Buffalo and on to Utica, New York, where he was employed in a carriage shop for one year. In the winter of 1850-1 he attended Central College at McGrawville, New York, and later in 1851 he was engaged in engineering work on the Mississippi river. In 1882 he was a student at the Ohio Wesleyan University and after leaving that institution taught school for a time near New Richmond. However, his adventurous spirit prompted his to try his fortune elsewhere and in the spring of 1853 he went to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama and for several years was in the deep mines of Sierra county, that state. For some time he was foreman of the Pioneer Company which by means of a high flume succeeded in getting water to Illinois Ridge and which tunneled the famous peaks of that locality. Mr. Walker was a candidate for the legislature on the first republican ticket ever nominated in Sierra county, California, and was quite active in political circles. In 1857 he caught the Fraser river craze and in 1859 he mined in the Comstock mines at Gold Hill, Nevada. In that region the deposits were so easily accessible that all of the mining was done from the surface and by hand, without the use of expensive machinery. He returned to California and later recrossed the Sierras on snowshoes and helped to establish Methodism in Virginia City, Nevada. In 1861 he re turned east by the overland route, stopping eleven days at Salt Lake City. After spending a few weeks in Ohio he again journeyed west ward, joining an immigrant train at Council Bluffs, Iowa, with which he went to the territory of Montana. At that time there were no white settlers there and he continued through Idaho to Portland, Oregon, and then made his way south to San Francisco. He again went to Nevada and in 1863 was at Austin, that state, while the following year he was at Smoky Valley, where he owned a ranch and engaged in raising hay and cattle. In 1869 he visited Piano, Illinois, arid while there became a member of the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints. In that year he was married and not long after ward he settled at Blue Springs ranch, Nye county, Nevada, where he lived until 1878. He then made his way eastward and located on a farm near the present site of Lamoni. He followed agricultural pursuits until 1884, when he removed to the town of Lamoni. In the fall of the following year he aided in establishing the Lamoni [212] Gazette, which was owned and published by the firm of Walker & Hansen. Mr. Walker served as the editor of the paper until his death, which occurred on the 1st of April, 1889. He was also for a time a writer for the Herald, the official organ for the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints. He was known as an able editor and the Lamoni Gazette gained a large circulation in this part of the state and was justly regarded as one of the excellent smaller papers of Iowa. Mr. Walker also found other expression for his literary ability, as he was the author of “Ruins Revisited” and “The World- Story Retold.” At the time of his death he was engaged in writing a poem entitled “The Spoilers of Jerusalem.” In 1869, at Sandwich, Illinois, Mr. Walker married Mrs. Marietta Faulconer. His widow survives at the advanced age of eighty years and is acknowledged as a woman of unusually fine character and of marked literary ability. Mr. Walker was a republican and remained loyal to that party until his death. His was a life full of change and incident and of tireless activity and much of his success as an editor was due to his wide experience and his restless energy, which always prompted him to better his past achievements if possible. Although more than a quarter of a century has passed since he was called to his reward there are many who still cherish his memory. [213] |
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