James Walker

TL;DR -- James Walker followed Jared Sparks as Head, both of them sixth generation Americans. He had several accomplishments; however, one huge impact came from his support of Charles W. Eliot being named Head. 

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We continue covering all of the Heads of Harvard (Wikipedia) with James Walker (Wikipedia) who followed Jared Sparks who is of so much interest (sixth generation (child of the Revolution era) and representative of things left to research). This post completes the list to Thomas Hill, except for the two short periods of John Winthrop. 

Portrait from
Harvard Square Library 

As we look at the Heads, we have done some research related to their families, mostly using WikiTree. The term of Walker (1853-1860) who was born in Massachusetts followed that of Sparks (1849-1853). And, like for Sparks, Walker does not have a WikiTree profile. However, Wikipedia does identify his parents. 

Taking a look at the trough of the www with "John Walker - Lucy Johnson," WT still does not show up; but, there are lots of people interested in this family. Too, Harvard has a bio, James Walker at harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies; this site will become a regular resource. After looking at the bio for James, we sampled a few to note that a personal history can appear. So, we learn that Walker's father, John, received a commission of Maj-Gen from President John Adams in 1798. 

Note: Biographies of notable Unitarian Universalists and other individuals relevant to the liberal religious tradition.

Later, we will post more about Walker's life.    

• History of Harvard (ours);
• History of the Presidency (Harvard); 
• graduates of Harvard (list initiated by Hoar); and 
• Harvard in the long history of the U.S. 

Walker died in 1874. More later (see following notes).

Notes:

1. Looking further at the Harvard Square Library, we see that Walker was instrumental in getting Charles W. Eliot (Post in this blog) into the Head of Harvard position. 

2. We will use Walker as a pivot with respect to generational issues that map to U.S. history, in a full sense. A slight delay might be seen here as we traced several threads which came up while reviewing Walker's term. Too, Queen Elizabeth II left a legacy that parallels U.S. history due to her long reign's touch of almost half of the 20th century. 

3. ...

Remarks: Modified: 09/17/2022

09/17/2022 -- Added in the list which points to related themes.