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MR. WILLIAM WALKER
{Toronto Globe, Nov. 20}
[Welland Tribune, 26 November 1897]
A pioneer of Ontario who has seen much service in connection with that important highway of commerce, the Welland canal, and who has established an honorable record for life-saving, is William Walker of Port Colborne. His father, Alexander Walker was born at Aberdeen, Scotland, and when fourteen years of age was bound as apprentice aboard a ship. When it arrived at Quebec he left and came to Bytown, now Ottawa. He worked in a lumber camp, and then came to Lake Simcoe, working at the task of bringing supplies for the transportation of Government stores from Barrie to Penetanguishene. He married Elizabeth Swayze of Holland Landing, and they lived on the site of what is now Barrie, being at first the only inhabitants of the place. Three sons and two daughters were born to them, of whom Mr. William Walker was the second, he being born in 1832. In 1838 the family moved to St. Catharines. Mr. Walker has given a graphic sketch of his entry upon canal work: “At fifteen years of age,” he says, “I was appointed bridge-tender at Hamilton bridge in the town of St. Catharines; this made me the first bridge –tender on the Welland canal. The bridge was but 50 yards from William Hamilton Merritt’s house, and he often took a step down hill to inquire about the doings of the canal. This was my best hold. I could always give a satisfactory answer. If I was a barefoot boy at that age, I was quite a canaller, and while the locks were building between St. Catherines and Thorold for two seasons I would walk up to Thorold every Saturday, and if the weather was bad I would play truant some days in the week and go up there, and so understood the canal from bottom to top.
“Some time before I went on the canal I went aboard the first screw boat that ever swung a wheel, built in Oswego by the name of Vandillia. There were not many who boarded her besides myself, Mr. Arnold and Mr. W.B. Robertson, superintendent of the canal at that time.”
“The third season in 1849, I was placed on lock No. 3, and remained there until 1870, close of navigation. I had other work to do, measuring timber in raft, copying clearances, detaining vessels for damage done to the canal, taking out old gates and replacing them with new.”
While on the canal Mr. Walker saved no less than twelve persons from drowning, having to jump into the canal for seven of them. Growing tired of the canal, he bought and sailed the schooner Almina for one season, working on repairs in 1872, and in 1873 working on the late T. Street’s mill at Niagara Falls. After nearly two years the mill was burned, and then Mr. Walker moved to Clinton, where he carried on a flour and feed store for three years. He is at present in the grocery business in Humberstone. In 1871 he married Miss Fanny Merritt, daughter of Edward Merritt, ship-builder, St. Catharines.
- Passed away 5 April 1910
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