|
|
||||||||||||
 |
Courtney Meade Walker
Pioneer Family of the Month |
|||||||||||
| Little is known of the youth of Courtney Meade Walker. Records indicate he was born in Kentucky in 1812. His mother was distantly related by marriage to President Andrew Jackson; his father, an attorney, was a veteran of the Revolutionary War and left home shortly after Courtney's birth to fight in the War of 1812. Courtney Walker was apparently well educated for the times, and he found work over the years as a surveyor, clerk, teacher, and, like his father, a lawyer. Walker seems to have come to Oregon on impulse in 1834. When Oregon-bound missionaries Jason Lee, Daniel Lee, and Cyrus Shepard came through Richmond, Missouri, they hired Walker and a friend of his named Philip L. Edwards to work at their as-yet-unbuilt mission for one year -- Walker as a clerical assistant, and Edwards as a teacher. The missionary party traveled west with the second expedition of Nathaniel Wyeth, an American entrepreneur who hoped to end the British monopoly on the fur trade in Oregon. Also with the expedition were two scientists: Thomas Nuttall, a botanist who resigned his position at Harvard to make the journey, and John Kirk Townsend, an ornithologist sponsored by the American Philosophical Society and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (among the many species first described as a result of their journey are Townsend's Warbler, Townsend's Thrush, Townsend's Gopher, and Nuttall's Little Hare). Townsend described the makeup of the group as they formed up outside Independence, Missouri: The men of the party, to the number of about fifty, are encamped on the bank of the river, and their tents whiten the plain for the distance of half a mile. ... We have amongst our men, a great variety of dispositions. ... Some have evidently been reared in the shade, and not accustomed to hardships, but the majority are strong, able-bodied men, and many are almost as rough as the grizzly bears, of their feats upon which they are fond of boasting. ... I am very much pleased with the manner in which Captain W. manages his men. He appears admirably calculated to gain the good will, and ensure the obedience of such a company, and adopts the only possible mode of accomplishing his end. They are men who have been accustomed to act independently; they possess a strong and indomitable spirit which will never succumb to authority, and will only be conciliated by kindness and familiarity. I confess I admire this spirit. It is noble; it is free and characteristic, but for myself, I have not been accustomed to seeing it exercised, and when a rough fellow comes up without warning, and slaps me on the shoulder, with, "stranger what for a gun is that you carry?" I start, and am on the point of making an angry reply, but I remember where I am, check the feeling instantly, and submit the weapon to his inspection. ... We were joined here by Mr. Milton Sublette, a trader and trapper of some ten or twelve years' standing. It is his intention to travel with us to the mountains, and we are very glad of his company, both on account of his intimate acquaintance with the country, and the accession to our band of about twenty trained hunters, "true as the steel of their tried blades," who have more than once followed their brave and sagacious leader over the very track which we intend to pursue. He appears to be a man of strong sense and courteous manners, and his men are enthusiastically attached to him. Five missionaries, who intend to travel under our escort, have also just arrived. The principal of these is a Mr. Jason Lee, (a tall and powerful man, who looks as though he were well calculated to buffet difficulties in a wild country,) his nephew, Mr. Daniel Lee, and three younger men of respectable standing in society, who have arrayed themselves under the missionary banner, chiefly for the gratification of seeing a new country, and participating in strange adventures. - John Kirk Townsend, April 20, 1834 After fulfilling his one-year contract for employment with Jason Lee, Walker went to work for Nathaniel Wyeth at Fort William, a trading post Wyeth had established on the lower end of Wapato Island (now known as Sauvie Island) at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers. Walker worked at Fort William for only a short time, as it was soon apparent that the American Fur Company was no competition for the entrenched Hudson's Bay Company. In 1838, Walker went to work for "the enemy," taking a clerkship at Fort Hall, an HBC trading post on the Oregon Trail run by Francis Ermatinger. Though there were few travelers on the Trail in '38 and '39, those who did pass through Fort Hall almost universally remarked upon the excellent hospitality offered by Ermatinger and Walker. Walker briefly returned to the employ of Jason Lee in 1839 or '40, working as a teacher at the Methodist mission school in present-day Salem. Though he never rose to the level of prominence enjoyed by many of the men he knew over the years, C. M. Walker was widely respected by his peers. He was one of the earliest American settlers to arrive in Oregon, and he had friends among both the American and British camps while the two factions were jockeying for political and economic dominion over the region. Indeed, the woman Walker courted and wed around 1840, Margaret McTavish Walker, was a blood relation of two powerful officials of the Hudson's Bay Company: Chief Factor John George McTavish (her father) and Governor Donald McKenzie (her great uncle). Walker and his new bride settled in the Tualatin Valley, established a farm, and raised six children together. When Oregon was annexed by the United States in 1849, Walker was elected Chief Clerk of the Territorial Government. He remained in government service for several years, taking a post as Indian Agent for the Siletz tribe after his term as Chief Clerk expired. Walker earned a reputation among both settlers and Indians for being fair, patient, and understanding. After leaving government service, relatively little is known of Walker's life. The 1860 census lists his occupation as a surveyor; his six children ranged in ages from 4 to 18. By 1870, Walker had relocated to Tillamook County and was living alone, his children grown and his wife apparently deceased. One of his contemporaries described him as being successful later in life, "...a courtly gentleman who...had the appearance of a man of culture and leisure." However, a letter written to his niece Georgiana in 1877 suggests otherwise: ... Since my last [letter] I have continued at home pretty lonely and with all my care and watchfulness have suffered losses. I have quit the cattle business, having returned all I had upon and come out with out a loaf or half cent of my own. Two weeks since I went to the Settlement with the intention of returning in a day or two; but was caught there by a heavy storm which continued 15 days. I had approached within two miles of my home the 12th day and still unable to go on, from the high stage of the waters. Then on yesterday morning my only and very valuable mare got away, and anxious to reach home attempted to swim the Nestucca River and was drowned. And now I find myself without a domestic animal of any kind except for a cat. My children write occasionally, but none come to see me, or speak of doing so... - Courtney Meade Walker, November 27, 1877 Walker lived alone until 1887, when he fell seriously ill. He managed to walk to a neighbor's house to ask for help, but he died there not long after. His friends buried him on a hillside behind their home. Courtney Meade Walker was the only man to come west with Jason Lee in 1834 who remained to live out his days in Oregon. |
||||||||||||
