History of Michigan, / by Charles Moore. [Vol. 3]

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

1293

His ability in the preparation of the railroad articles was no doubt
one of the influences which led Mr. Walker to purchase, on January 5,
I86I, from Wilbur F. Story the Detroit Free Press, of which he was
until 1872 editor and sole proprietor. Under his administration the old
Free Press maintained the splendid prestige of its earlier days, and Mr.
Walker proved a forcible and able editor, combining admirable literary
style and taste with a mature judgment and broad grasp of economic,
political and social affairs. Mr. Walker sold the Free Press in I872
largely as a result of his antagonism to the nomination of Horace Greeley
for president. He refused to consider Greeley as a representative of the
true principles of the Democratic party, and the withdrawal of his support was one of many other factors which contributed to the overwhelming defeat of the New York editor in his campaign.
Mr. Walker was a man of decided convictions, and there was no misunderstanding of his position with regard to any public question of importance. While acting as postmaster of Detroit the Lecompton constitution of Kansas was being debated in congress, and was finally made one
of the principal planks in Buchanan's administration policy. Mr. Walker
opposed the constitution since it permitted slave-holders to take their
slaves into Kansas and hold them as slave property. At heart Mr. Walker
was a Free-soil Democrat, and while willing that slavery should exist in
the South, where it was an old established institution, was utterly opposed
to its extension to the free soil of the North and West. For his attitude
in this controversy President Buchanan deposed him from the office of
postmaster.
The late Mr. Walker was also prominent as a Detroit banker. In
I849, under an act of the legislature, the Detroit Savings Fund Institution was organized, and Mr. Walker was its first vice-president. This
office he held for twenty-five years, and was a director of the bank when
it was reorganized as the Detroit Savings Bank, continuing a director of
the latter until his death. He had varied other business relations, only
one or two of which can be mentioned within the scope of this brief article. During the early fifties he purchased about three thousand acres of
wild land in Clinton county, on the surveyed line of the Oakland & Ottawa
Railroad, and on which the village of St. Johns, now the county seat, was
subsequently located. Had he been able to retain his possession of that
property, the land alone would have made him a wealthy man. While proprietor of the Detroit Free Press in I870, Mr. Walker bought and undertook the development of what was known as the Spurr Mountain Iron
Mine in Baraga county, Michigan. The venture proved unprofitable and
resulted in a personal loss of upwards of a quarter million dollars. When
Dr. Tappan, after becoming president of the University of Michigan,
sought contributions from the wealthy and cultured men of Detroit for
funds sufficient to establish an astronomical observatory, Mr. Walker was
one of the most liberal in co-operating with the president of the university,
and subsequently paid the entire cost of a meridian circle for the observatory, purchased by Dr. Tappan in Germany.
October 3I, I86i, Mr. Walker married Miss Emily Virginia Norvell,
daughter of Hon. John Norvell, the distinguished Detroit citizen and one
of the first senators from Michigan, whose career is sketched on other
pages of this work. Mrs. Walker was born in the old Norvell homestead
at 814 Jefferson avenue in Detroit, May 7, 1837. In 1871 Mr. Walker
bought this fine old homestead, and thus gave his wife the privilege of
returning to the old home in which she was reared and which was endeared to her by many hallowed associations. Mr. and Mrs. Walker had
three children, as follows: John Norvell Walker, born September II,
i862, and died May I, I913; Henry Lyster Walker, a sketch of whose
Vol. 111-6