Charles Swan Walker papers

Charles Swan Walker, B.A. 1867.

Born October 7, 1846, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Died January 14, 1933, in Stamford, Conn.

Father, Samuel Swan Walker (Miami University 1826-29; M.D. Medical College of Ohio 1834); physician, teacher, lecturer, architect, and portrait and landscape painter; son of James and Sarah (Swan) Walker of Cincinnati. Mother, Harriet Newell (Fowles) Walker; daughter of David Lewis and Olivia (Hurd) Fowles, of Sandgate, Vt.

Albion (N.Y.) Academy. Served as a Private in Company G. 137th Ohio Infantry, May 2-August 19, 1864. Attended Marietta College 1864-65 as member of Class of 1867 (member Alpha Sigma Phi). Entered Yale as Junior in 1865; high oration appointment Senior year; contributed to Yale Courant; member Linonia (third prize in debate Senior year; acting secretary), Delta Beta Xi (Alpha Sigma Phi), and Phi Beta Kappa.

Studied in Yale Divinity School 1867-68, 1869-1870 (B.D. 1870); attended Andover Theological Seminary 1868-69; licensed to preach June 8, 1869, at Milford Conn.; ordained to Congregational ministry August 1, 1871, at Darien, Conn., where acting pastor 1870-71 and pastor 1871-72; also taught Latin in Darien Seminary; organized First Congregational Church, Huntington, W. Va., and served as acting pastor 1872-72; principal (in association with Rev. Robert B. Snowden, Williams '59) of Prospect Park Seminary, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1874; acting pastor First Congregational Church, Holyoke, Mass., 1874-76; acting pastor South Congregational Church of Amherst, Mass., 1876-79 and pastor 1881-86; pastor Congregational Church, Vineland, N.J., 1879-1881; took graduate work in political economy and philosophy at Amherst College 1884-85 (Ph.D 1885); professor of mental and political science at Massachusetts state College 1886-1906 and also served as chaplain of the College and secretary of the faculty; pulpit supply in Western Massachusetts from 1906 until about 1923; acting pastor First Congregational Church in Amherst 1906; regular correspondent of Springfield Union, Boston Globe, and for the Associated Press from 1906 until retirement in 1923; member Amherst School Committee 1884-1891 (chairman in 1891) and again 1914-16 (secretary both years); secretary of Republican Town Committee, Amherst, 1922-26; trustee of First Congregational Church in Amherst 1904-06 and again 1913-16 and moderator of its annual meeting 1905, 1906, 1908-1910, 1912-14, and 1920; appointed councilman of Amherst Interchurch Union 1922; chaplain of Massachusetts State Grange 1888-1900, of Pacific Lodge of Masons, Amherst, 1905-1913, and of E.M. Stanton Post, G.A.R., Amherst, 1917-1925; during the war served as chairman of local committee of U.S. Fuel Administration; author: Herbert Spencer's View of the Evolution of Religion (1886) and Samuel Minot Jones, The Story of an Amherst Boy (1922); contributed to Yale Review, Andover Review, World's Work, New England Magazine, New Englander, Biblioteca Sacra, American Journal of Politics, Congregationalist, Work and Wages, Grange News, Treasury Magazine, Golden Rule, Good Roads, and Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (of which a member); president of Connecticut Valley Economic Association; a founder of Amherst Historical Society in 1903, director 1903-1925, secretary 1916-1920, and president 1920-25; charter member Connecticut Valley Congregational Club 1882; member American Economic Association (member of council), American Statistical Association, Hampshire East Association, Massachusetts Agricultural College chapter of Phi Kappa Phi, and First Congregational Church in Amherst.

Married September 15, 1873, in Darien, Alice, daughter of Charles Grandison and Emeline (Morehouse) Morehouse. Children: Claude Frederic (B.S. Massachusetts State College and Boston University 1894; Ph.D. Yale 1897) and Charles Morehouse (ex-'07 F.; B.S. Massachusetts Agricultural College 1899). Mrs. Walker died December 6, 1929.

Death due to heart failure incident to advanced age. Buried in Spring Grove Cemetery, Darien. Survived by sons and two grand-daughters.

Yale University Obituary Record, 1931-34, pages 7-9.