Ancestors

Captain Richard Walker

Richard Walker came to New England by 1633 and settled at Lynn in Massachusetts. Lynn's annals put him there in 1630, farming on the west side of the Saugus River. He was made a freeman on 4 March 1633/4. Robert Charles Anderson's Great Migration Begins places his birth about 1611 from two depositions he gave: in 1653 he said he was about forty one, and on 30 June 1676 "aged about sixty-five years."

He was chosen ensign of Lynn's military company in March 1636/7 and rose through lieutenant to captain. He sat as Lynn's deputy to the General Court in 1640 and 1641, and again in 1648 and 1649. In 1645 Captain Robert Bridges was sent on a delicate mission to Nova Scotia to treat with the French governor D'Aulnay, and he chose Lieutenant Richard Walker and Sergeant Thomas Marshall to go with him. It began a long association between Walker and Nova Scotia. He lived at Reading by 1647, at Boston by 1666 and at Lynn again by 1673.

By 1637 he had married Jane Talmage, a daughter of Thomas Talmage. She bore a son, Shubal, about 1639, and was dead by 1640. That year he joined her brothers William, Thomas and Robert Talmage in appointing attorneys to collect their portions from England, "Richard Walker, husband of Jane Talmage, deceased." By about 1642 he had married a second wife, Sarah, who bore Nathaniel, Elizabeth, Tabitha and Obadiah. Nathaniel sailed on the Swallow, wrote from Virginia in 1671, and died in Delaware. Elizabeth married Ralph King. Tabitha, born at Reading in 1647, married Daniel King. Obadiah became a Boston merchant and died before his father.

In September 1677 he and Sarah deeded 392 acres at Reading to "our loving son Suball Walker of Bradford" and to "our loving daughter-in-law Sarah Walker relict widow of our son Obadiah." He was buried at Lynn on 16 May 1687. Samuel Sewall rode past and wrote it in his diary: "this day Capt. Walker, a very aged planter, buried at Lin." His widow was granted administration in June 1688.

Lynn's annals gave him an age of ninety five at death and a birth in 1593, and with them a son Richard born in 1611 and a son Samuel, later of Woburn. Anderson found that the ninety five years were "inconsistent with all other data for this man." The Richard born in 1611 was the captain himself, and the older Richard of 1593 did not exist. Samuel Walker of Woburn, born about 1615, was four years younger than the captain and cannot have been his son. The two were more probably brothers. Anderson also notes that an earlier compiled account of the captain, by Colket, "incorporates data from at least two and possibly three different Richard Walkers."

If Captain Richard Walker is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Captain Richard Walker (1611-1687)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/captain-richard-walker-1611-1687-1cea7c.