John Walker (1749 - 1809)

Born 20 Jun 1749 in Hopkinton, Middlesex, Province of Massachusetts Bay

Ancestors

Husband of Mary (Gibbs) Walker — married 31 Aug 1769 in Holliston, Middlesex, Province of Massachusetts Bay

Descendants

Died 7 May 1809 at age 59 in Livermore, Oxford, Massachusetts, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Stuart Bloom [send private message]

Biography

Birth

John Walker was born at Hopkinton, Massachusetts, on 20 Jun 1749, the son of Jason Walker and Hannah (Burnap) Walker.^[1]

Marriage

John Walker of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and Mary Gibbs of Holliston, Massachusetts, published their intention to marry at Hopkinton on 16 Jul 1769,^[2] and they married at Holliston on 31 Aug 1769.^[3][4]

Revolutionary War Service

Mary Walker filed an application for a Revolutionary War widow's pension in May 1837. She stated that her husband John was a sergeant, serving for eight months starting in 1775 in a company commanded by Captain Babcock and later for three years in Captain Hills' company in Colonel Vose's regiment of Massachusetts troops.^[5] The 2010 history of Livermore, Maine, says that John Walker "was one of [Benedict] Arnold's men on his [1775] expedition against Quebec."^[6]

Residences

Following their marriage, John and Mary Walker recorded six children at Hopkinton, Massachusetts, living there until at least 1 Jul 1781, when their son Elijah was baptized.^[7] By 8 Jun 1783, they were living at Medway, Massachusetts, when they baptized their daughter Jerusha, and they were still there when they baptized their son Levi on 25 Jul 1784.^[8] They were at Livermore, Maine (then in Massachusetts) by 1789, when John Walker is listed as one of the 17 heads of households there.^[9] His widow's Revolutionary War pension application says that at his death in 1809 that he had lived at Livermore "upwards of twenty years/"^[5]

Until the establishment of regular mail service in 1806, John Walker was the unofficial mail carrier for the town; he "visited Portland [about 6o miles away] weekly, as a sort of expressman, carrying and bringing packages, doing errands, and taking and bringing letters to and from the nearest post-office on his route."^[10]

Death

Mary Walker's application for a Revolutionary War pension says that John Walker died on 7 May 1809.^[11] A FindAGrave memorial, with no photo of a headstone and with no sources cited, says that he died at Livermore, Maine (then in Massachusetts) on 7 May 1809 and is buried at the Lake View Cemetery there.^[12]

Sources

1. ↑ Vital Records of Hopkinton, Massachusetts to the Year 1850 (Boston, 1911), page 192
2. ↑ Vital Records of Hopkinton, Massachusetts to the Year 1850 (Boston, 1911), page 379
3. ↑ Vital Records of Holliston, Massachusetts to the Year 1850 (Boston, 1908), page 279
4. ↑ Certification of the marriage record by the Holliston town clerk, in Revolutionary War widow's pension application #W25888, page 5 (subscription required)
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} Revolutionary War widow's pension application #W25888, page 3 (subscription required)
6. ↑ Reginald H. Sturtevant, A History of Livermore, Maine, Second Edition (Trafford Publishing, n.p., 2010), page 87
7. ↑ Vital Records of Hopkinton, Massachusetts to the Year 1850 (Boston, 1911), page 191
8. ↑ Vital Records of Medway, Massachusetts, to the year 1850 (Boston, 1905), page 126 for both baptisms
9. ↑ Israel Washburn, Notes, Historical, Descriptive, and Personal of Livermore, in Androscoggin (Formerly in Oxford) County, Maine (Portland, Me., 1874), page 9
10. ↑ Israel Washburn, Notes, Historical, Descriptive, and Personal of Livermore, in Androscoggin (Formerly in Oxford) County, Maine (Portland, Me., 1874), page 88
11. ↑ Revolutionary War widow's pension application #W25888, page 3 (subscription required)
12. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #99427933