George Leon Walker and Williston Walker Papers

The diaries and records of Series I and II were received and processed in 1978; the remaining material was added in 1982. The correspondence, diaries, notes and writings of George Leon and Williston Walker form the core of this collection, but significant documentation is also provided by letters of others, papers, and clippings which the Walkers' interest in history led them to collect. Correspondence of William Jennings Bryan and sermons of early New England clergymen Payson Williston and Elisha Williams are among the documents included in the collection. As a member of the Board of Visitors of Andover Theological Seminary and a member of the Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, George Leon Walker had a personal interest in the controversies which embroiled those bodies in the late 1800's and collected relevant documentation.

The diaries of George Leon Walker in Series I include sixteen volumes of daily entries dating from 1861 to 1896. Also included in this Series are a small notebook describing Walker's trip to England in 1880 and a fragmentary diary of Walker's second wife, Amelia, written in 1898. Walker's diaries provide a detailed and complete account of the daily activities of a New England clergyman during the second half of the nineteenth century and supply extensive biographical information. Walker was interested in national news and politics and reported important events in his diary entries. His comments regarding the Civil War and the slavery issue during the 1860's are of interest, although Walker's location in northern New England precluded personal interaction with the events reported. During the 1890's Walker was particularly interested in national financial news regarding currency and taxes. Newspaper clippings pasted into the diaries deal primarily with unusual local weather conditions or national news events. Local details such as ice-skating conditions and the spring arrival of the Baltimore orioles are also documented. Daily weather conditions are consistently reported in Walker's personal entries.

The diaries of George Leon Walker also provide biographical information about his son, Williston. Williston Walker wrote the entries in his father's diary from August to October, 1896, following his father's debilitating stroke.

The miscellaneous records of Series II primarily relate to George Leon Walker, supplementing the biographical overview provided by his diaries. They include:

Prominent correspondents of the Walkers in Series III include Lyman Abbott, Leonard Bacon, Henry Ward Beecher, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Timothy Dwight, George Park Fisher, Washington Gladden, Mark Hopkins, Dwight L. Moody, Theodore Thornton Munger, Noah Porter, Julius Seelye, and Newman Smyth. A number of letters in the Series relate to the controversy surrounding the applications for missionary service under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (A.B.C.F.M.) of A. J. Covell and Charles Harbutt in 1887. These letters are an excellent source of documentation regarding the questions of doctrinal orthodoxy that concerned the Board during this era.

The writings, addresses and sermons of Series IV are primarily those of Williston Walker and their contents reflect his interests. Also included in the Series are fifty-three manuscript sermons of Payson Williston, Pastor of the church in Easthampton, Massachusetts from 1789 to 1833, and a 1722 manuscript sermon of Rev. Elisha Williams who was Rector of Yale College from 1726 to 1739.

The notes of Series V are primarily those of Williston Walker. They include narrative notes for lectures Walker delivered as Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale.

The final Series represents a collection of manuscript and printed documents collected by George Leon and Williston Walker on subjects of interest to them.