Searching for Billy Walker - Part 2

  I have spent quite a bit of time trying to decide how I want to present my findings.  Do I show them in the order they were found . . .or . . . should I present what I know of Billy's life in the order of his life?  I have decided on the latter, but be aware that my research discoveries sent me back and forth in his life often finding events that I did not have enough information to discover earlier.

  I want to begin with a quote by L.P. Hartley.  "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." I believe this is important to keep in mind as family historians. Sometimes the language used by newspapers and individuals or the values they espouse do not seem appropriate by today's standards just as ours will not by future generations.

  I started my research using the information in the family notes that had been passed down. After all, that's all I had, and it turned out to be quite a lot.  My first question was how did he fail to show up in either the Federal Census or the Kansas State census, and this is where I discovered a black hole in my records. While I thought he had slipped between the census enumerations, it turns out that there is not an 1865 Kansas State Census OR an 1870 Federal Census for Rock Township, Marshall County, Kansas online. How did I not realize earlier that all of my Rock Township ancestors were missing the 1870 census? The Isaac Walker family lived in Vermillion Township in the 1865 census but Billy was not listed with the family.  I will update this when I receive responses to my inquiries.

  So the story of Billy Walker begins with his arrival in Rock Township, but, alas, there are conflicting stories.  The first is the one left in family notes: He was hiding in a cave on a farm adjoing the Walker property with other slaves who were making their way north to freedom in Canada. When he became sick and the severe cold caused him to lose several toes from frostbite he was left behind.  He was discovered there by Isaac Walker and taken into his home. It sounded like a family myth, but later, I found two newspaper articles that mentioned this child.  One was published in the Frankfort Review, Friday, 24 Feb 1899, page 4 and subsequently re-published in other local newspapers.  It tells a complicated story of a dying black man asking a Union soldier to find his family and check on them. When he did, he found the child starving and living with a struggling family after the death of his mother. The article then went on to talk about some "pious gentlemen" arguing over the fate of this poor child.  The "pious gentlemen" argued so forcibly that ". . .friends had to separate them to prevent bloodshed". "The result was that the child was adopted into the Isaac Walker family."  I like to think that Isaac was one of the friends and not one of the "pious gentlemen".  Regardless, this story seems very convoluted but maybe the truth is a bit of each.  I invite you to read the lengthy article for more details.

And then there was the 1899 obituary of Winifred Walker, Isaac's wife which also confirms that they did indeed take a young African American child into their family but the circumstances that brought about this event vary. I have tried to determine  how old this child was when he joined the Isaac Walker family. Later records indicate that he was born about 1858, but I believe that he was more than likely a bit older.  Realistically, he probably had no idea how old he was, and I picture him as frail.  

Those newspaper accounts included additional information which led me to a sad and dark part of Billy's life. After he came to live with the Walker's they decided that Billy should go to school.  Winifred Walker had a great interest in schools and had worked with her sister-in-law, Mary McKeever Barrett to organize the first school in Marshall county - the Barrett school.  I haven't been able to definitely determine which school Billy attended yet, but it couldn't have been too far a distance from the Walker farm.  One 1899 newspaper article describes its location as "six miles northwest of Frankfort in what was known as the Walker district".  This would put it near Winifred, Kansas.  "The school district at that time (Abt. 1863-1870) was 15 miles long by about seven wide." While the Walkers and others in the south part of the district felt that schooling would be good for Billy, there were others in the north who violently opposed it.  Now I am going to include a lengthy quote from an 1899 article in the Frankfort Review because I could not do it justice by summarizing it.  So Billy was sent to school, and he was barely seated when people in the north found out about it . . .

Another article written in 1901 by my great grandfather, David B. Walker, for the 15 Nov, 1901 edition of the Marshall County news titled "Early History of Marshall County" describes the events in this way.

The first article above in the 1899 Frantfort Review tells us, "The building has now been razed to the ground . . . yet around this old building clings an incident which gave life to a law now upon the statute books of the state which provides that all children, whether white or black, shall not be denied admission to the public schools of the state."  However, the 1901 Marshall County News article says that the law was voted on BEFORE the attack. Was it a state law or a local law?  I have not yet found that law but I keep searching.  Somewhere else I read that the law came after the attack but for the life of me, I cannot find it now. This is why I wanted to write a blog post.  I needed to document and organize this history because I am not the only descendant who never knew the story of Billy Walker.

In part 3, Billy grows up and becomes William Walker.