Walker family

This collection documents the 19th-century personal, business, and genealogical papers of the Walker family. In the late 1830s, most of the family moved west from New England to Illinois, and were founding citizens of Belvidere, Illinois.

Colonel Joel Walker, Jr. (1780-1855), the father of many of the Walkers represented in this collection, was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He owned a shop in Peacham, Vermont, and in 1805 married Alice Houghton (1781-1874), of Keene, New Hampshire. They had seven children: Caroline Peck, Juliette M. Gilman, Joel Hamilton, Houghton Chester, Francis, George, and Lucius. In 1839, he and much of his family moved from New England to Belvidere, Illinois. He helped found a Presbyterian Church in Belvidere and in 1845 became the chairman of a committee of Boone County citizens, a group that lobbied for a railroad to pass through the town.

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