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From the estate of
PROFESSOR WILLISTON "WALKER
1924

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Stephen Ambrose Walker

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5

OTEPHEN AMBROSE WALKER, the subject of
<-^ this brief memorial sketch, died at his home in
New York February 5, 1893. His illness was brief,
and to most of his friends unknown. He was at
tended in his last hourS only by his two brothers, his
sister, his physician, and necessary assistants. His
death occurring at a time when he occupied no of
ficial station, his departure made no breach in any
branch of public service, and derived its significance
chiefly from the qualities of his personal character.
Yet that character was so well understood, and had
been proved in such sufficient ways, both publicly and
privately, that it was not surprising that the announce
ment of his unexpected decease should have carried
more than common shock both to his professional as
sociates and his private friends, or that the demonstra
tions at his funeral, and the published tributes to his
memory should have been of unusual impressiveness
and warmth.
It is believed that these associates and friends
would be glad of some more definite memorial of a
man they had known only to respect, and some of
them to love, and it is for their sakes that the follow
ing pages are written.
Stephen Ambrose Walker was born at the parson
age of the Congregational church in Brattleboro, Ver
mont, on November 2, 1835. He was the fifth child

and third son of Rev. Charles Walker, D.D., then
pastor of the Brattleboro church, and of Lucretia Am
brose Walker, his wife.
On his father's side Stephen was of the eighth
generation in descent from Richard Walker, the first
of the family in New England, who was born in 1593,
and who came to this country from England in 1630,
settling at Lynn, Massachusetts, and dying there of
great age in May, 1687. His intermediate paternal
ancestors were Deacons Samuel and Samuel, Jr., of
Woburn, John of Weston, Nathaniel of Sturbridge,
all of Massachusetts; Phineas of Woodstock, Connec
ticut, and Leonard of Strafford, Vermont, father of
Rev. Charles. His father, Charles Walker, was a well
known minister of the Congregational fellowship, who
filled successive pastorates in Rutland, Brattleboro,
and Pittsford, discharging an active ministerial service
of more than fifty years, and dying honored and be
loved in the eightieth year of his age, November 28,
1870. On his mother's side Stephen was of the seventh
generation in descent from Henry Ambrose, a first
settler in Hampton, New Hampshire, in 1639; tracing
his line through Henry, Jr., of Salisbury ; Nathaniel
and John of Chester, New Hampshire; Robert and
Stephen of Concord, in the same State; to Lucretia,
oldest daughter of Stephen Ambrose and Hannah
Eastman, from whose father young Stephen Ambrose
derived his name.
The early New England habitat of the progenitors
in the two direct lines of Stephen's ancestors is

s
scarcely more marked than in the case of his collateral
ones ; more than seventy different families through
whom his blood traces back to the eighth generation
having been definitely ascertained to have been
planted in New England previous to 1650.
Coming thus of a stock which, so far as has been
discovered, represents only one family of later New
England settlement than 1 680, and none of other than
British parentage, young Stephen Ambrose Walker
was, as might be anticipated, a characteristic product
of New England blood and breeding. Into his com
position had gone the fainily traits of scores of differ
ent household progenitors identified from the dawn of
New England history with the religious and political
convictions of the communities they helped to fashion,
and with the views of life and behavior nurtured in
this hardy school of experience. To the last fibre of
his being he was the child of a robust and high-pur
posed puritanism. The ideals, the convictions, the in
centives, and, if one choose to call them so, the limita
tions and constraints which belonged to him were
those which characteristically develop out of the
pregnant soil of whatever is most distinctive in New
England life.
Nor were the immediate associations into which
young Walker was introduced by birth and family
training suited at all to obliterate the more general
stamp of his wider lineage.
His father was as has been said a minister, one of
the old, illustrative type of a half century ago; plain,
conservative, with strong views of the perU of sin and

6
the need of interposing grace ; but withal also of a
charitable and kindly heart, and with a sense of the
obligations of integrity and honor of the keenest and
most dominating character. He had won his way to
education and to the ministry, and to the command
ing place he always occupied in the denomination to
which he belonged, by his own unaided industry and
endeavors ; and though always a poor man in point of
worldly possessions was as self-respecting and inde
pendent as a king. " Owe no man anything," was one
injunction, at least, of apostolic wisdom which had in
his history and family a constant recognition.
Stephens mother, Lucretia Ambrose, was a woman
of at least equal vigor of character with her husband,
active in intellect, quick and resourceful in invention,
strongly gifted in conversational powers, and with
very deep religious sensibilities and convictions. She
was a woman ^^'ho naturally led in whatever associa
tions she entered ; to whom other women as naturally
deferred, and who had, amid all the hardships of a
poor minister's laborious and restricted family life, a
constant hunger for whatever could enlarge intelli
gence and brighten and refine the round of daily care.
It need hardly be said that a household of which
such parents were the head, while it might have its
limitations and sometimes sore deprivations, had also
its advantages and compensating privileges. It might
be poor, but it was alert, spirited, and in a good sense
ambitious. It could not give its members the benefit
of travel and luxury and artistic surroundings, but it
gave them high ideals, it stimulated their love of the

beautiful and the good, and it ingrained into the very
texture of the plastic spirit the habitudes of honesty,
independence, and self-control.
Born into such a family Stephen early took his
place as a member marked for some of the most
definite of its general characteristics. An old great-
aunt of the boy, who was in his earlier childhood for
some years a member of the household, well defined
one youthful trait — a trait of manhood as well — when,
in a meditative characterization of the qualities of the
objects of her almost grandmotherly care, she said,
" Stephen never prevaricates."
In the eleventh year of Stephen's age, one of the
vicissitudes of pastoral experience to which a min
ister's life is always liable, transferred his father's
home from Brattleboro to the still quieter and more
rural community of Pittsford. The new community
into which his life was thus introduced was, how
ever, not a less intelligent one than the old ; did not
lack its own special advantages in characters of a
rather unusually strong and picturesque type, a vil
lage library of uncommon range and quality for the
place and time, and especially an environment of
physical landscape and scenery of beauty and im
pressiveness almost unequalled anywhere else in New
England. It is impossible to overlook, it is hardly
possible to overestimate, the influence upon a sensitive
spirit of such natural surroundings as those which
through all the varying changes of the year impress
themselves at once upon the eye and upon the soul of
an appreciative dweller amid those Pittsford scenes.

The grandeur, the loveliness, sometimes the tender
ness and the sadness, of the aspects of nature are forces
of spiritual potency whose educative power is all the
more successful for the unconsciousness of their opera
tion by the mind upon which they are doing their
most effectual work. It was, perhaps, the soberer and
tenderer side of Nature's teachings which most im
pressed the young spirit now spoken of, rather than
the gayer and grander ones ; anyway these fitted in
with, and perhaps they increased, a certain undertone
of melancholy which beneath all apparent robustness
of physical vigor and resoluteness of will all who
knew Stephen intimately must have recognized.
From the village schooling of this little community
Stephen went in 1852 at about seventeen years of age
to Burr and Burton Seminary, an old and respectable
institution at Manchester, Vermont, where he fitted
for college.
For the expenses of his education he was to be
mainly dependent on his own resources, which he met
by teaching in the intervals of college terms, being
aided however to some extent in the later part of the
college course by a loan of money, afterward repaid,
on the part of an uncle resident in New York.
He entered Middlebury College in 1854, and grad
uated at the head of his class in 1858. An incident
connected with the pronunciation by him of the vale
dictory oration on " The Conservative Tendency of
Scholarship" — when showered with bouquets by his
admiring hearers, he turned before leaving the stage
and presented the handsomest to his father, sitting

upon the platform — is perhaps worth alluding to as
illustrating a trait always controlling in his life, his
filial loyalty and family devotion. It was a simple,
natural act, but it showed the boy and the man, and it
brought a tear to almost every eye that witnessed it.
Graduated from college, young Walker found him
self twenty-two years of age, in debt for a considerable
amount of the cost of his education, and his calling in
life undetermined. To "owe no man anything" was
the primary law of the household, and to discharge his
obligation he resumed the practice of teaching, in
which however he had as yet had only a common
school experience. Chance drifted him in the first in
stance to Ohio, where at Chester Cross Roads he
taught a successful year in Geauga County Seminary.
The year at Geauga completed, drawn mainly by
the consideration of a sister's anticipated residence in
the place, he transferred the scene of his tutorial
labors to Binghamton, New York, becoming there the
principal of a seminary.
A letter dated " First Sunday night at Bing.,"
(Sept., 1859) may be quoted as giving, once for all, an
insight into a certain feeling, seldom however so dis
tinctly uttered, of sombreness and self-depreciation
which attended even his most successful work. " Of
course I am pretty blue. I shall be blue till either the
world or myself is reconstructed at all such times.
New place. No home yet. Sunday. All this, and the
inability to find much relief from the introspection
which such circumstances induce, have made me blue.
My solace has been in thinking of the world of com-

to
forts I should be thankful for, of the clearness with
which my path is marked before me, and in determin
ing to do my daily work happily and well."
This Binghamton experience, thus rather pensively
entered on, was destined to have important bearings
on Mr. Walker's after life. He had three successful
years of teaching in the seminary, but during this
time he made the acquaintance of Hon. Daniel S.
Dickinson, and under his guidance began the study of
law. Assiduous night work supplemented what he
could spare from his day labors, and in 1861 he was
admitted to the Bar of Broome county. He was not
destined, however, at this time long to prosecute the
profession he had chosen, for the country was just
then entering on the great struggle of self-preserva
tion in the conflict of the rebellion. Impelled like
hundreds of thousands of other young men to lay
aside for the time the ordinary purposes of life, Mr.
Walker was commissioned by Governor Holbrook of
his native State of Vermont, Paymaster, with the
rank of Major, and was mustered into the United
States service.
The diverse experiences of army life filled up the
next three years, in which he. served at various stations
in Virginia and the Department of the Gulf, as well as
at Washington and Cincinnati, and other northern
posts of the Federal army. He was one of the com
pany of paymasters ordered to Knoxville during the
beleaguerment at that -place of the Ninth Army Corps
under Burnside, by General Longstreet. The en
trance was effected, however, and for many weeks the

II
paymasters participated in the common experiences of
the siege. A special experience was nevertheless threat
ened them by General Longstreet, who sent them
word that if they destroyed the money in their cus
tody, and which by the exigency of the siege they
were unable to pay to the soldiers, he would hang
them. Preparations were however made by the pay
masters to burn the money, even to the extent of wet
ting some of it down with kerosene ; but the retreat of
Longstreet before the relieving force of General Sher
man prevented the necessity. For skill and success in
executing the duties committed to him. Major Walker
was brevetted Lieutenant-Colonel.
Among other interesting experiences of this army-
period of life was his first encounter with a patriotic
citizen of Connecticut, a distinguished capitalist and
inventor, with whom Mr. Walker's relations were
destined to be of an intimacy and confidential char
acter hardly to be anticipated from the opening ac
cost of their earliest interview.
While stationed at Washington in 1862, the troops
which Major Walker was designated to pay were a
long time deprived of their money for lack of funds
on the part of the government. Some irritation was
felt, and it seemed likely to spread. One day a private
soldier entered Paymaster Walker's office, and after
stating that he was the mail carrier for a Connecticut
regiment whose made-out pay-rolls were in Mr. Walk
er's hands, asked when the men were to be paid.
" When I get anything to pay them with," was the
paymaster's reply, perhaps a little crustily made, as a

12

reply which had over and over been made before to
others. Upon which the private offered to furnish the
cash — about thirty thousand dollars. The paymaster
thought the matter a joke at first, but the private in
sisted that he was serious, and that he had the funds
ready. A little further. conference and Elias Howe,
Jr.'s check was accepted to pay off his regiment, and
to give a distinct impulse to the patriotic spirit of the
North generally. The friendship of the two men, be
ginning in this picturesque incident, continued as long
as Mr. Howe lived, and resulted in the entrusting a
chief part of the large law interests of the Howe Sew
ing Machine Company during its founder's life and
after his death to Mr. Walker's guidance.
Mr. Walker continued in the army service to the
end of the war, when, settling up his voluminous ac
counts for the government to the satisfaction of the
department, and with a distinct and uncollected bal
ance to his credit, he turned to his yet hardly essayed
profession of the law. Conscious that he must have
grown rusty as to his preliminary studies, he attended
two years the Law School lectures of Professor Dwight
at Columbia College, while occupying a part of the
office of Charles H. Hunt, Esq., of New York, a lawyer
of considerable eminence, but better known as the
author of the " Life of Edward Livingston." Grad
ually finding encouragement in his choice of a pro
fession and a home, Mr. Walker formed a part
nership connection, under the title of " Buckham,
Smales and Walker," with two well-known lawyers of
the old school type, both of English birth, the second

13
of whom, especially — Holbert Smales, Esq. — was
unsurpassed in certain branches of office work and
practice by any one in the profession. Mr. Buckham
shortly retired from the partnership, but Mr. Smales's
relation to Mr. Walker, under the title " Smales and
Walker," continued till the death of the senior partner
in March, 1881.
After the death of his friend and partner, Mr.
Walker established no other formal business connec
tion of similar character, but conducted his increasing
practice by the aid of assistants only, one of whom,
Jarndyne Lyng, Esq., continued with him in this rela
tionship till his death.
A brief reference may properly be made to some
of the many litigations with which the private profes
sional practice of Mr. Walker was connected hav
ing interest for lawyers, and in some instances for
the public.
The case of the Parsee merchant, Bomanjee By-
ramjee Colah, excited much interest in legal circles in
New York. This unfortunate Hindoo, who seems to
have been rather irregular in life, appeared as a guest
at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York in 1870,
where, and in other places of public resort, he began
to act in an erratic manner. He soon removed to the
Hoffman House, at which place it became apparent
that he was not in his right mind, and he was pres
ently committed to a lunatic asylum. When he was
adjudged insane he had forty thousand dollars on his
person, and some sixty thousand dollars in gold had
been deposited by him with the proprietors of the

14
hotel. Mr. Nathaniel Jarvis, Jr., was appointed the
committee of the estate, and obtained possession of the
funds. Another committee of the person of the luna
tic was appointed, authorized to convey the unfortun
ate Colah to Bombay, where he found the wife and
family, and where the invalid himself died in 1882.
Meanwhile the committee of the estate became finan
cially embarrassed, and a series of protracted litiga
tions followed in respect to allowances, investments,
and alleged losses, resulting after many years' struggle
in a judgment in 1886 for upsvards of seventy-six
thousand dollars in behalf of the widow — a judgment
which, owing to the insolvency of the committee, was
eventually, in 1889, settled by his sureties. Through
out this litigation Mr. Walker acted as counsel for the
committee of the person, and for the family of Colah.
The embarrassments connected with the recovery to
the distant but rightful owners of the property left in
the legal custody of an appointee of the New York
court, constitute a chapter of history little to the credit
of the administration of justice in that State ; but the
final result, by which the integrity of the judicial pro
cedure was as far as possible vindicated and restored,
was undoubtedly in large measure due to Mr. Walk
er's persistent determination in the defense of the
rights of a Hindoo woman whom he had never seen.
Her letters and her photograph sent him at the con
clusion of the affair, show a person of great natural
beauty and of marked intelligence.
One of Mr. Walker's early cases was an action
brought in behalf of Bret Harte, restraining a pub-

lisher from issuing, as by that author, a book of which
only the earlier pages were his, the continuation being
by other hands. In this case the principle was first
established that an author is entitled to invoke the aid
of a court of equity against those who falsely represent
literary productions to be his.
Mr. Walker was also successful in an action brought
in behalf of John J. Kiernan against the Manhattan
Quotation Telegraph Company, in establishing the
principle that there is a right of ownership in tele
graphic news. Among other litigations belonging to
his private practice which were of considerable gen
eral interest, may be mentioned the settlement of the
claim against the Navy Department of the firm of the
late John Roach ; and the establishment, as against
the city of New York, of the rights of riparian owners
in connection with dock-property under recent legis
lation. It will be remembered that Mr. Walker was inter
ested in schools ; had been several years an instructor.
He did indeed at one time seriously contemplate
making this occupation his lifetime's employment.
These facts naturally called the attention to him of
Mayor Wickham of New York city, whose uncle, Rev.
Joseph Dresser Wickham, had been Mr. Walker's pre
ceptor in the old days of preparation for college at
Burr and Burton Seminary in Manchester, Vermont.
Mayor Wickham therefore tendered Mr. Walker a
Commissionership on the Board of Education for the
city, which responsible but unpaid position Mr. Walker
entered on January 1 1 , 1 876. For a busy man engaged

i6
in other employments, the office of a Commissioner of
Education in New York is no sinecure. The board
has the supervision of all the public educational inter
ests under the charge of the city, in the schools of vari
ous grades and in the college ; the appointment, care,
and direction of many hundreds of teachers ; the selec
tion of school books and determination of methods of
instruction, and the disbursement annually of several
millions of dollars. The functions of the office are
onerous, but are of a nature so philanthropic and so
connected with the best moral interests of the city,
that they have appealed with success to the public
spirit of some of the ablest and best men the city has
ever contained, and their unpaid services have been
freely put to the general use. It is the testimony of
Mr. Walker's associates and successors in the board, that
the city never had a commissioner of larger views or of
more faithful service, as it certainly never had one
whose official relation to the board was so extended.
Beginning service as commissioner on January 1 1 , 1 876,
reappointed by successive mayors, Cooper and Grace,
he was elected president of the board in 1880, and
for seven consecutive terms, up to and including 1886.
His full time as commissioner was ten years, two
months, and four days, and his presidency of the board,
six years and two months ; the longest period of like
presiding service in the history of the board. During
this ten years he gave to the schools of the city unre
mitting though unremunerated attention, attending
meetings of the board and of its committees constantly,
and visiting its office almost daily. While he was

17
practical and conservative in his views, his sagacity
and sincerity became increasingly impressed upon the
school system, and his popularity throughout the city
increased steadily to the close of his administration.
For the most part this service was unembarrassed by
political complications, but an attempt being made by
the mayor of the city in 1885 to use the board, as Mr.
Walker believed, to promote a political purpose, the
endeavor was resented by its president, who appealed
to the public through the press, and insulted in the
defeat of the Mayor's candidate, and in Mr. Walker's
re-election for the seventh time to the presidency of
the board on the platform of political non-interference
with the public schools. On one occasion during this
conflict, Mr. Walker vacated the chair at a meeting of
the board, and taking the floor, in a telling speech,
concluded with a sentence which found echo in the
press and on the tongues of the whole city, " I say to
politicians, keep your hands off of the Board of Edu
cation." So recognized was Mr. Walker's fidelity and effi
ciency in this department of service, that after four
years voluntary retirement from the board, occasioned
by the pressure of other public duties, he was solicited
in 1 890 by Mayor Grant, to accept again the position of
school commissioner, an offer which he felt, however,
that his long period of previous service justified him
in declining.
It was in the earlier part of Mr. Walker's service
on the education board that he consented, somewhat
reluctantly, to be the candidate of the County Democ-

racy of New York for the office of surrogate. His
candidacy as against the nominee of Tammany was
formally endorsed at a meeting of the Bar Association
of the city, but the division of the two factions of the
Democracy resulted in the election of the Republican
candidate. Mr. Walker's retirement from the Board of Educa
tion, of which he had just been re-chosen presiding of
ficer, was occasioned by his appointment by President
Cleveland as United States Attorney for the Southern
District of New York. This appointment, which was
made February 19, 1886, was wholly unsolicited on
Mr. Walker's part ; his first intimation of it being the
newspaper announcement of its having been made.
The public reception of his appointment was cordial,
and his conduct of the official duties eminently suc
cessful. The functions of legal positions have in gen
eral little of popular interest, however arduous or im
portant in themselves ; but lawyers will remember, as
cases attracting their attention during the official term
of Mr. Walker, the trial and conviction of Louis Bieral
for the shooting of Surveyor Beattie ; the suit of John
H. Lester against Benjamin F. Butler, to recover one
hundred thousand dollars for alleged false imprison
ment in Fortress Monroe in 1863; the case of Holy
Trinity Church, prosecuted for breach of the law relat-
ing to contract labor in the instance of Rev. E. Walpole
Warren, and some others. One of the marked feat
ures of Mr. Walker's administration of the office of
district attorney, was his systemization and successful
eonduct of the numerous litigations known as Collect-

19
or's suits. It was largely owing to his representations
concerning the numbers and pressing character of these
long-delayed cases that a new judgeship of the Circuit
Court was established for the primary purpose of
expediting the settlement of these suits which had
been so great a time an incubus upon the business of
the office, and so irritating an embarrassment to im
porters whose just claims were wronged by the delay.
Upon the election of President Harrison, Mr.
Walker tendered his resignation of the office of Dis
trict Attorney, which resignation was not however
accepted till the appointment of his successor in the
autumn of 1889.
, Mr. Walker's large private business made his retire
ment from the public office no personal disadvantage.
His cases were important, his time amply employed.
One interest of a semi-public character occupied a good
deal of his thought. He had been selected in 1887 by the
executors of the will of Hon. Samuel J. Tilden, as one of
the two additional trustees to manage the estate known
as the Tilden Trust created under that will. As is well
known, the kindred of Mr. Tildan contested the will.
Mr. Walker discerned the probability that under the
statutes of New York, the will would be set aside ;
though in Massachusetts it would undoubtedly be sus
tained. He was therefore strongly in favor of a com
promise with the contestants, for which they also were
ready. The majority of the trustees, though not all,
took a contrary view and insisted on fighting the mat
ter out on legal lines, believing the will would be sus
tained. The result vindicated Mr. Walker's opinion.

20
The will was broken, and near or quite two million
dollars less than might have been secured are now at
the disposal of the great public charity which Mr. Til
den devised, than if Mr. Walker's counsel had been
followed. His interest in the design remained, how
ever, undiminished by any disappointment or chagrin
over the failure of his endeavors. His last communi
cation to the public was an appeal through the columns
of the New York Tribune of Jan. 26, 1893, for the
preservation of the beautiful old City Hall building,
threatened with destruction, and its removal to Reser
voir Square as a permanent receptacle for the Free
Library founded and to be maintained by what was
secured of Mr. Tilden's generous donation.
Mr. Walker was never a politician in the sense of
feeling any considerable interest, or taking any active
part in the minor details of party management. His
strong moral convictions compelled him, however, to
feel a deep concern in all the larger issues on which
parties were divided, and especially on those which
involved any question of justice and fairness in treat
ing popular rights. He recognized Mr. Cleveland's
signal courage and his fidelity to the interests which
had been intrusted to him, and he took ap earnest
though inconspicuous share in his support on each
of the first two occasions, when Mr. Cleveland ran
for the Presidency. When, however, preliminary to
the third national canvass in Mr. Cleveland's behalf,
a recognized attempt was made by one branch of
the New York Democracy, led by the Governor of
the State, to prevent Mr. Cleveland's nomination.

21

Mr. Walker took a part unusual to him in the active
organization of measures to defeat what he regarded
as a most unwise and undemocratic endeavor. He
was energetic in arranging for the Cooper Insti
tute meeting to protest against the "Snap Conven
tion," called by the sympathizers with Governor
Hill ; he drafted in the main the resolutions adopted
by that meeting as an " appeal and protest," " against
the uncalled for and ill advised action of the State com
mittee," in fixing the date of the State convention at a
period calculated to " limit and embarrass a genuine
expression of popular feeling upon the question in
hand," and which provided for the appointment of a
committee of fifty to take such further action as might
" secure a proper representation of the people of the
State in the national convention." The subsequent his
tory of the movement in the call of the Syracuse con
vention, and in the presence at Chicago of its represent
atives who, while not claiming admission to the floor,
exercised nevertheless the moral weight upon the na
tional convention of men known to represent a large
and loyal element of New York's Democracy, true to
Mr. Cleveland and opposed to the machinations of his
enemies, are too well known to be recounted. The pro
test of the " Anti-Snappers," as in the language of the
hour they were called, was most timely. It represented
the best mind of the party, and it contributed not a
little to the confidence felt by the delegates of other
States that if was safe and wise, spite of protests from
the regular representatives of New York on the con
vention floor, to nominate the man, who about four

22
months afterward was elected, for the second time.
President of the United States. For this event and
for the co-operant share in it of the Anti-Snapper
movement, Mr. Walker was sincerely grateful.
Though a loyal citizen of New York, Mr. Walker
had a passionate affection for the home of his youth at
Pittsford, Vermont. The family homestead had been
retained in possession after the decease of both his
parents, and in it with his brothers and sisters he was
accustomed to spend a few weeks of the summer,
yearly. The welfare of the town was a matter always
interesting to him, and the summer of 1892, of which
a longer period than usual was spent by him in the
place, was employed by him in projecting a system of
water-works for the village, to supply a necessity more
than usually imperative. The water was to be brought
from a spring of extraordinary purity and copious
ness, a distance of about four miles, from the side of
Nickwauket mountain, one of the summits looking
down on the beautiful Pittsford valley. The ex
penses of analyses of the water and of preliminary
surveys, he defrayed himself before calling attention
of his townsmen to the enterprise. The result
of his summer's vacation work was, however, the
formation and incorporation of a water company,
which before the following July had arrived had
accomplished the work of introducing an abun
dant supply of the purest water into the town, suffi
cient for all present uses and for all prospective growth
of the community. The 4th of July, 1893, was made
the occasion of a town celebration of what was regarded

23
as an event worthy of joyful commemoration in the
whole place. The chief projector of the enterprise and
one of its most generous promoters, however, was not
there. On Tuesday, the 31st of January previous, Mr.
Walker left his office at the Equitable Building in
New York in apparently perfect health and vigor. He
spent an evening of somewhat more than usual cheer
fulness in the companionship of friends in his own
home. He retired early, but was awakened at about
three o'clock in the morning of February ist, with
severe pains through the loins and high fever. His
brother. Dr. Henry F. Walker, who, together with
him, lived at the house No. 8 East 30th street,
which they jointly maintained, and his brother's
partner, Dr. G. M. Swift, recognized the characteristic
features of the disease — la grippe — which has of late
years stricken down so many, suddenly and mysteri
ously. The patient himself seemed in a degree to
forecast the gravity of the seizure, saying that if this
should prove to be his last illness he was " as ready "
as he " could be at any time." Still, serious apprehen
sion was not felt of a fatal issue. But on Friday
morning one lung showed extensive development of
obstruction, and on Sunday the other became involved.
Through the hours of this day he declined rapidly.
Both his brothers and his sister were with him, recog
nized and frequently spoken to to almost the very end.
At half-past eight on the evening of Sunday, February
5th, he ceased to breathe.
The announcement of his death in the newspapers

of Monday morning called forth general expressions
of surprise and sorrow. His funeral was attended on
Tuesday, February 7th, from the University Place
Presbyterian church, of which religious organization
he was a communicant, and of whose ecclesiastical
society he was a trustee. The edifice was filled almost
solidly with men, lawyers, merchants, and representa
tives of the various public educational and commercial
interests with which Mr. Walker had been identified.
The pall-bearers were Wm. Lummis, Esq., of the
Board of Education, Hon. Chas. W. Fairchild, Geo. W.
Van Slyck, Esq., Judge Wheeler H. Peckham, Mr.
Joseph F. Parke, Alexander E. Orr, Esq., of the Tilden
Trust, A. C. Brown, Esq., an intimate and beloved
friend, and Chas. E. Miller, Esq. The Circuit Court of
the United States Court for the district — Judges Wal
lace, Lacombe, and Shipman — adjourned in respect
for his memory, and the various bodies with which he
had been identified put on record minutes signifying
their sense of his worth. These more formal expres
sions of regard for Mr. Walker's character seem to
be but tokens of a sentiment which pervaded the en
tire circle of his business and professional acquaint
ance. Very appropriately did Rev. Dr. Alexander,
his pastor, say in the prayer at his public funeral:
"We thank Thee, O God, for this strong, true life
which has been lived among us, and which under the
shield of the faith of his fathers has stood unwounded
and unbroken amid all the assaults and temptations of
this tumultuous world."
The body was borne to the beautiful cemetery at

25
Pittsford, and lies beside those of his father and
mother in the midst of one of the most lovely land
scapes the eye can anywhere look upon. He was
fifty-seven years and two months of age.
The surviving members of his father's family are
his sister, Mrs. Anne A. Boardman, wife of Professor
Geo. N. Boardman of Chicago Theological Seminary ;
Rev. George Leon Walker of Hartford, Connecticut,
and Dr. Henry F. Walker of New York, the household
associate not only of childhood but of the last twenty
years. One nephew, also, son of his brother George,
Professor Williston Walker of Hartford Theological
Seminary, completes the list of his immediate family
connection. To his family friends Mr. Walker's departure was
an irreparable loss. Never having married, he was
bound to them by ties which knew no alternative
attractions. He was a most loyal son while his parents
survived, a most generous brother and friend. But
his largeness of heart was not limited by associations
of kindred. A big man every way, in body, mind, and
soul, his influence and character welled out in benefit
on every side. Many were the pensioners on his free
handed bestowments. His bluff, resolute bearing
softened to tenderness at the least sight of suffering
or need. No one could be quicker than he to feel and
to respond to the touch of sorrow or want.
One of the most intelligent and longest associated
of his fellow-commissioners on the Board of Education
writes of this trait of Mr. Walker's character: "No
sketch of the man would be complete without a brief

26
reference to other than merely intellectual qualities.
He could be stern, and those who saw him only in his
rugged moods might deem him deficient in the gentler
aspects of manhood. No greater injustice can be con
ceived. His nature was capable of infinite compas
sion. One phase of school life, constantly occurring
in the experience of school officers, never failed to
move him deeply. It was the sight of a modest girl;
fresh from her studies and from a refined home, trying
to earn her living as a public school teacher. He
could never get used to it. He knew the heart-break
ing disappointments, the chagrins, the petty humilia
tions, the struggle with uncongenial surroundings
which might be in store for her, and for the moment
these would outweigh all other considerations.
" Once he was present at a competitive examination
in which several young women took part. There were
but two positions to fill, and several candidates must
be disappointed in any event. Beyond this, however,
it was evident that among the candidates were some
who were quite unequal to the task they had under
taken. Yet, perhaps, during years of labor and self-
denial they had been looking forward to this or a
similar opportunity, and now was coming their first
experience of the inexorable rule of life, 'Tools to
the one who can use them.' After listening awhile
M-r. Walker left the room hastily and did not return.
He could not restrain the feelings which had been
excited by a competition which was hopeless for most
of them taking part in it, and which involved so much
painful anxiety and nervous effort even for those who
might succeed."

27
Neither by temperament nor by circumstances was
Mr. Walker inclined to be in any considerable degree
a society man. His bachelor estate to some necessary
extent separated him from such a degree of contact
with many aspects of social companionship as might
otherwise have been more familiar and perhaps agree
able. For he was a man whose friendships were
strong and tenacious. He made true friends and held
to them truly. He was a member of the University
Club, the Lawyers' Club, and the Bar Association, and
found a frequent satisfaction in the fellowship of
friends met on the common ground of such associa
tions. His recreations were simple and wholesome.
Among these may not inappropriately be mentioned
his pleasure in driving a generous spirited and speedy
horse. He generally had two or three such, and after
the labors of a busy day would often be seen, alone
or with some familiar friend, following a rapid gait
along some up-town avenue, where such driving is
permissible, or jogging, as evening fell, more slowly
through the park, homeward. But outside his life
work, in which he found a high and strenuous enjoy
ment, his main pleasures were in his family affections,
his filial and fraternal loyalties, hopes, and devotions.
Mr. Walker's life appears to human view to have
been untimely ended in the full strength of a power
ful physical manhood, and in the prime of a noble, in
tellectual capacity. It seems as if, permitted longer to
live, he would have done larger things and sustained
weightier responsibilities ; as certainly his easy mastery
of those he knew gave assurance of adequacy to any

28
which time might naturally bring. One who saw
much of him and was associated with him in a good
deal of his work, well says, " He seemed always to be
acting well within his powers, and as if he were capa
ble of much greater tasks than any which were put
upon him. He carried weight so easily as to intimate
the possession of great unused strength."
But those reserves of strength were not destined
here to be completely employed. His bow was never
fully drawn. Nevertheless, dropping life when he
did, suddenly and without warning, he leaves the com
forting memory behind him of a good man and a true
christian, who made many hearts happier by his gen
erous deeds and his earnest labors, who bettered the
world he lived in, was faithful to all trusts committed
to him, and who, going hence, cannot have gone else
where than where the just, the good, and the loving
are found.

MINUTES AND RESOLUTIONS

30

ACTION OF UNITED STATES COURT.
CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS. )
I Second Circuit, February 7, 1893. [
Judges Wallace, Lacombe, and Shipman presiding.
After motion made by United States Attorney Mitchell
that a suitable minute be entered on the record, and that ad
journment be taken in respect to ex-Attorney Walker's mem
ory, which motion was sustained by remarks by several mem
bers of the Bar, the Court through Justice Wallace spoke as
follows :
" We recognize the propriety of the motion which has been
made. Mr. Walker so recently filled the office of United
States Attorney of this District that we can hardly realize as
yet that he has ceased to be an oflficer of this Court. I know
that I speak the thought of all the Federal Judges of this Dis
trict when I say that he was regarded by all of them as a Dis
trict Attorney of exceptional fidelity and ability. As a citizen
he was public-spirited, zealous, and influential. As a lawyer
he was high-minded, conscientious, well-equipped, and force
ful. He was true and loyal in all relations of life. The Judges
of this Court feel that in his death they have sustained a
grievous personal loss. The motion is granted, and a proper
entry will be made upon the minutes of the Court."

31

ACTION OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION.
At a meeting of the Board of Education held February 15,
1893, the following resolutions were adopted and put on
record :
" Whereas, It has pleased Almighty God to call to His Eternal
Hdme a former member of this Board, the late lamented
Stephen A. Walker, who departed this life on the 5th day
of February, 1893, and
Whereas, Our departed friend while a member and as Presi
dent of this Board had, on account of his sjerling qualities
both as a man and as a public officer, his courteous manner
and dignified bearing, his ripe judgment, ability, and devo
tion to his trust, eminently enjoyed the confidence, re
spect, and esteem of his associates, therefore
Resolved, That we, Commissioners of Education of the City
and County of New York, hereby express our sorrow at the
sudden demise of our former associate and friend, the late S.
A. Walker, in whose death humanity has lost a friend, society
a faithful member, and public education an earnest advocate.
And be it further
Resolved, That we tender our condolence to the relatives of
our deceased friend in their bereavement and that the pre
amble and these resolutions be entered in full on the minutes
of this Board.''

32

ACTION OF THE TILDEN TRUST.
Extract from the Minutes of the Board of Trustees of the
Tilden Trust, February 9, 1893 :
"Stephen A. Walker, whose demise on Saturday, the 5th
inst. , has left a lamentable vacancy in this Board, was born in
Brattleboro, in the State of "Vermont, on the 2d day of No
vember, 1835 ; he graduated from Middlebury College in 1858 ;
was admitted to the Bar in 1861 ; served as a paymaster in the
army in the war of the rebellion, at the close of which he en
tered upon the practice of his profession in the city of New
York. He was a member of the Board of Education in this
city from 1876 to 1886, and was for the last seven of those
years its President, and upon the accession of Mr. Cleveland
to the Presidency in 1885, he was appointed District Attorney
of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
To secure for the administration of the munificent bequest
made to this city by the late Samuel J. Tilden, the advantage
of Mr. Walker's superior talents, varied and valuable experi
ence in the public service, and excellent judgment, he was by
Mr. Tilden's executors chosen on the 26th day of April, 1887,
as one of the members of the first Board of Trustees of the
Tilden Trust organized under its charter, a trust which he
continued to hold until the day of his death.
While humbly bowing to the dispensation of Divine Provi
dence which deprives us henceforth of the benefit of Mr.
Walker's wise counsels, we desire by this record to commem
orate his faithful and effective service in this Board, and to
testify our high appreciation of his philanthropic spirit, his
brave and manly character, and our profound sense of the
grievous loss this Board has sustained by his death."

33

ACTION OF THE BAR ASSOCIATION.
At a meeting of the Bar Association of New York, held
March 14, 1893, a memorial of Stephen A. Walker, prepared
by his cousin, Aldace F. Walker, Esq., was read; which me
morial will be printed in the annual report of the Associa
tion in accordance with its usages respecting deceased mem
bers.

34

ACTION OF THE NATIONAL LEAGUE FOR
THE PROTECTION OF AMERICAN INSTI
TUTIONS.
At a meeting of the Law Committee of the National
League for the Protection of American Institutions held
March 9, 1893, the following minute was adopted :
"Mr. Walker's wise counsel and influential name have
proved of signal service in the patriotic work of seeking to
protect our cherished American institutions. Professionally
Mr. Walker is conceded to have been an ornament and an
honor to the American Bar, while as a citizen he proved his
interest by faithful service in the cause of education of the
youth, and in political and moral reforms. In Mr. Walker's
death the members of the National League lose a friend and
fellow-worker, and the public interests a strong, cultured,
conscientious, and manly supporter."

«j.*

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