Gen. Thomas McCormick Walker    

GENERAL THOMAS MCCORMICK WALKER, for nearly thirty years an extensive farmer of North Dakota, during the earlier portion of his life made a bright and substantial record in Pennsylvania annals as a brave and an able officer in the Civil war and a citizen of faithful service both in the county and national governments. His father, the late Hon. John H. Walker, was one of the most distinguished lawyers and public men of the state, and his standing was recognized by such men as Governor Curtin, Thaddeus Stevens and Judge Black, of the Keystone state, and Edwin M. Stanton and other characters of national and universal fame. The elder Mr. Walker was a native of Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, born on the 9th of February, 1800, being a son of John and Isabella (McCormick) Walker and descended from such early settlers that they may justly rank as among the founders of the state. William Walker, his great-grandfather, settled in what is now Lancaster county during 1710, only eighteen years after the arrival of Penn. Subsequently, the family moved to Cumberland county, which was long the ancestral residence. The maternal grandmother of General Walker and the mother of John H. was a daughter of Thomas and Jane (Oliver) McCormick, and was born within the limits of the present city of Philadelphia on the 29th of December, 1759, being a sister of the late Cyrus McCormick, of harvester fame. The Olivers themselves have a leading part in the early history of Pennsylvania. Consequently, John H. Walker had the best of pioneer blood flowing into his veins from all sides and through all branches of the family tree. He himself, after graduating from Washington College in 1822, read law with an uncle in Philadelphia; was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1823; located in Erie in 1824, and for the succeeding half a century was one of the noted men in the city and state. He served in the legisature [sic.] in 1832, 1849 and 1852 (during this period being president of the state senate), and in 1873-74 took a leading part in the Pennsylvania constitutional convention, his legal learning and his broad ability in the consideration of public question giving him unusual prominence in all its deliberations, succeeding Hon. William M. Meredith as its president. In 1831 John H. Walker wedded Miss Catherine D. Kelley, a New Hampshire lady who died in 1860, mother of nine children. He passed away on the 24th of January, 1875, a few months after the completion of his fine service as a member of the state constitutional convention.

Thomas M. Walker is a native of Butler county, Pennsylvania, born on the 4th of February, 1834, at a time when his mother was on her way to join her husband at Harrisburg, where he was attending certain public duties. Although a student at Princeton (New Jersey) College, his tastes were more active than scholarly, and in 1854 he left school and spent several years thereafter engaged in railroad construction in Missouri and Illinois. His next venture was in the Canadian oil fields, but the outbreak of the Civil war brought him home to Erie county to assist in the raising of the One Hundred and Eleventh Pennsylvania Infantry. Of this he was elected major, during the progress of the war receiving successive promotions as lieutenant colonel, colonel and brevet brigadier general, and remaining with the regiment named throughout, until his honorable muster-out at Washington, District of Columbia. At Lookout Mountain, with his color bearer, he went up the ladder in the hottest fire of that terrific conflict, and for the gallantry of his regiment the state of Pennsylvania has since placed a memorial tablet in their honor on the historic spot. On Sherman’s march to the sea the One Hundred and Eleventh was the first regiment to enter both Atlanta and Savannah and General Walker led the command on both historic occasions. After the battle of Cedar Mountain he was reported dead for over a week, but he was really busily engaged in Washington in substituting for the old Belgian rifles with which his regiment was armed, the more modern Springfield. While thus employed his father was beseeching Secretary Stanton to permit him to go through the lines and make a careful search for his son’s body; and father and son accidentally ran into each other’s arms in the old Kirkwood (now Raleigh) Hotel, at the national capital. It was a joyful meeting on both sides, and doubly so on the part of the former, who had hoped only for the sad comfort of finding his son’s body on the battle field. For general gallantry in action General Walker was presented with a handsome sword by the ladies of Erie, and soon after the war the government breveted him brigadier general.

For a time after his return to Erie General Walker was engaged in the wholesale grocery business. In 1870 he was elected sheriff and in 1876 appointed postmaster, serving in the latter position until his resignation in 1879. In the following year he went to North Dakota to engage in farming. Until 1906 he cultivated on an average of five thousand acres, but since that year has decreased the area of his operations to about eleven hundred. He has the general supervision of his still large ranch and farm, usually spending the season from spring to the Christmas holidays in North Dakota, and returning to Erie for the winter months. General Walker is an old Mason, in 1855 joining Missouri Lodge, No. 1, St. Louis, Missouri. He is also identified with the societies of the Army of the Potomac, Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Cumberland, and, naturally with the Grand Army of the Republic and the Pennsylvania Commandery of the Loyal Legion.

General Walker’s wife was Agnes Caughey, daughter of William M. and Sophia (Clemmens) Caughey. Her father, who is deceased, was born June 15, 1817, and represented an ancient Scotch family, whose members were among the first adherents to Presbyterianism in the mother country. During the religious persecutions of the seventeenth century its American ancestors emigrated to Ireland, making their home in the vicinity of Donegal and about 1750 two Caughey brothers came to this country and located in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, where one of them (Francis) died at the age of ninety-three years. This ancestor of the Erie county branch of the family became the father of two sons and three daughters. John, the second in order of birth, was born in Lancaster county, June 13, 1784; married Ann Vance Wilson, in Washington county, Pennsylvania, and died June 19, 1859. His wife, who was born October 6, 1786, passed away on the 6th of May, 1839, the mother of fourteen children, of whom William M., Mrs. Walker’s father, was the fifth. The latter was for many years a prominent and honored citizen of Erie county.

A twentieth century history of Erie County, Pennsylvania : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people and its principal interests, Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1909, pages 471-473.. More Erie County History Books   Search Hundreds of 1880s-1890s Pennsylvania County History Books for biographies and historical information on your ancestors.  View the book page images on line and print them out for your genealogy file!   Free Access to the old history books - plus birth & death records, census images and ALL other records at ancestry.com.