"Portrait & Biographical Record of the Willamette Valley Oregon."  Chicago:
Chapman Publishing Company, 1903. p. 1121.
 
ALBERT S. WALKER

     The advancement and prosperity of the thriving little city of Springfield,
Lane county, Ore., is largely due to the progressive and energetic captains of
industry, who early perceived its advantages as a business center and have been
influential in developing its resources. Prominent among these is Albert S.
Walker, now one of its foremost citizens and a prosperous real estate dealer and
insurance agent. A native of Missouri, he was born January 11, 1846, in Greene
county, a son of the late William Walker, an Oregon pioneer.
     William Walker was born in Georgia, but spent a large part of his earlier
life in Chattanooga, Tenn. Going to Greene county, Mo. in 1843, he lived there
four years, working as a millwright and a cabinetmaker. Coming across the plains
in an ox-team train in 1853, he located first in Lane county, Ore., taking up
three hundred and sixty acres of land near Creswell, where he lived four years.
Removing to Eugene in 1857, he established himself in mercantile pursuits,
dealing in drugs and general merchandise until 1861. Investing then in land near
Eugene, he carried on ranching ten years in that location, and then, in 1871,
purchased a farm at Pleasant Hill, where he pursued his independent vocation
until his retirement. He attained a good old age, dying at Springfield, Ore., in
1881, at the age of seventy-eight years. One of the representative pioneers of
this section of the state, he rendered material assistance in developing one of
the best counties in Oregon, and was an important factor in advancing its
educational, moral and political status. In his younger days he was a Whig, and
afterward affiliated with the Republican party, and was in hearty sympathy with
the Abolitionists. He married Mary Shields, who was born in Georgia, and died,
at the age of seventy-six years, in Eugene, Ore. Of the nine children that
blessed their union, Albert S. was the only son.
     Having been but seven years of age when he came with his parents to Lane
county, Albert S. Walker obtained the rudiments of his education in the common
schools, afterwards attending the old Columbia College, at Eugene, for two
years, finally graduating therefrom. Assuming charge of the farm which his
father owned in the vicinity of Eugene, he conducted it from 1862 until 1881,
being successful as a farmer. Locating then in Springfield. Mr. Walker
established himself as a blacksmith, winning a large and lucrative patronage in
this vicinity. Since retiring from his trade in the spring of 1903, Mr. Walker
has been actively engaged in the real estate and insurance business, in which he
is meeting with encouraging success, handling both farm and town property.  He
has acquired a good share of this world's goods, and owns a well improved ranch
of forty acres, lying about three miles southeast of Springfield.
     Mr. Walker married, in Polk county. Ore., in 1868, Miss Sarah L. Higgins,
who was born in Massachusetts.  Her father, the late Seldon Higgins, also a
native of Massachusetts, was a dyer by trade, and worked for a number of years
in the mills of Woburn, Mass. Leaving his native state in 1851, he came with his
family by train to the Missouri river, and then across the plains with ox-teams,
to Oregon. Locating in Polk county, he purchased three hundred and sixty acres
of land in Spring Valley, and was there engaged in general farming until his
death, at a venerable age, in 1898. In common with the other pioneers of his
county, he labored with untiring energy to develop a farm from the wild country
in which he had settled, and was successful in his efforts. Mr. and Mrs. Walker
are the parents of eight children, all living at home, namely : Herbert E.,
William F., Mary B., Ralph Gladstone, Jessie May, Grace, Ida and Joy. A man of
broad and liberal views, alive to the important needs of the day, Mr.
Walker has been influential in educational and political circles, and besides
serving ten years as school director has the distinction of having served in
1891 as the first mayor of Springfield.  He has likewise served as councilman,
and is one of the leading Republicans of the city.  For Twenty-two years he has
been identified with the independent Order of Odd Fellows, being a charter
member and past noble grand of the subordinate lodge, and a member of the
encampment.  He also belongs to the fraternal order of Woodmen of the World.  He
is an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he is a trustee,
and also the superintendent of its Sunday School.

     
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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in June 2010 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.