♂John Walker

John Walker (1692 – 3 June 1743) was a shipwright of Kittery, then in York County in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, who also held land at Arundel, the town now called Kennebunkport, and left part of it to his son Gideon. He was the sixth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son Gideon Walker (1719–1805). He was baptised as an adult at Kittery Point on 18 November 1722, the same day as two of his sons.

Early life and marriages

The history of Brunswick, Topsham and Harpswell published in 1878 by George A. and Henry W. Wheeler gives his birth at Newington, New Hampshire, in 1692, and says that on 1 June 1717 he bought what was known in 1845 as the “Walker Field” in Kittery, where he afterwards lived. The Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire by Noyes, Libby and Davis tentatively credits him as a son of John Walker, a glover of Portsmouth and Newington, and suggests that he was probably apprenticed to Elihu Gunnison, whose daughter Elizabeth he married on 24 January 1714/15; the dictionary records one child of that first marriage, who died young.

The Wheelers give the marriage of John Walker and Mary Bickford, daughter of John Bickford of Newington, as 21 October 1717; the genealogical dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire dates it 24 October 1717, at Newington, and counts eight children of the marriage. Their son Gideon was born at Kittery in 1719, according to the Wheelers, who also write that in 1741 his father bought him a homestead at Arundel, to which Gideon moved with his wife in 1745.

Children and church

The couple had eight children at Kittery between 1718 and 1736, according to an index of the Kittery town book: a first Eliphalet, Gideon, a second Eliphalet, Temperance, John, Mary, Elizabeth and a second Mary. Four of them died young: the first Eliphalet in the year he was born, and the second Eliphalet, Temperance and the elder Mary in the 1730s.

On 18 November 1722 John Walker was baptized at Kittery Point, in the church then under the Reverend John Newmarch. The register records that he “own’d the Covenant & Baptized”, and it enters his sons Gideon and Eliphalet, baptized the same day, as infants. His wife Mary was admitted to full communion with the church on 14 September 1735.

Will and death

He made his will on 13 May 1743, describing himself as a shipwright of Kittery, “very sick and weak in Body”. He left his wife, Mary, the use and income of his whole estate for her life and for bringing up the children not yet of lawful age, and made her his sole executrix. To his son Gideon he gave twenty acres of his land at Arundel, “lying by the Land of Samuel Perkins”. The rest of the estate was to be divided after Mary’s death among “my well-beloved Children Gideon Walker John Walker, Elizabeth Walker & Mary Walker”, the two sons taking the houses and lands and making their sisters’ shares equal to their own. The will thus names four of the eight children. Roger Mitchell and Thomas Fernald were among the witnesses.

The Wheelers give his death as 3 June 1743, three weeks after he made the will; the genealogical dictionary also gives 3 June, citing his gravestone, which records that he died in his fifty-first year. The will was proved on 15 July 1743, and his estate was appraised on 23 September 1743, partly at Kittery and partly at Arundel. His widow later married Zacheus Trafton, according to the genealogical dictionary.

Notes

The sources disagree on the deaths of two children. The index of the town book gives the second Eliphalet’s death as 31 August 1739 and the elder Mary’s as 10 September 1736; another compiled reading gives both in 1735, with the same day and month. The index gives Temperance’s death as 21 August 1735. The conflict stands, and the years given here follow the index.

The index gives Gideon’s birth as 6 October 1719, the date followed here; the 1878 history gives 12 October.

The Kittery Point register names no parent for the baptisms of a Mary on 2 August 1730, an Elizabeth on 25 March 1733 and a Mary on 18 July 1736. They are taken as this couple’s daughters because the names and dates fit, which the register does not say. The index gives birth dates for the two Marys of 27 August 1730 and 18 August 1736, both after those baptisms, so either the index months are wrong or the baptisms belong to another household. The will names one Mary; on the dates the index gives, the elder died after the younger was born, so the younger is the daughter who was alive in 1743. A baptism of 20 June 1725 enters an unnamed infant daughter of John Walker; the register does not say which child she was.

The register also records baptisms of Charles and William Walker in 1725 and 1727, of two Georges in 1730 and 1731, and of Miriam Walker in 1733. None is attributed to John, and they belong to another Walker household in the town.