Edward G. Walker
Edward Garrison Walker, also known as Edwin Garrison Walker, was an American artisan in Boston who became an attorney in 1861; he was one of the first black men to pass the Massachusetts bar. He later became a politician and in 1866, he and Charles Lewis Mitchell were the first two black men elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature. Walker was the son of Eliza and David Walker, an abolitionist who had written an appeal in 1829 calling for the end of slavery.
An independent thinker, Walker had different ideas than many Republicans; the party did not renominate him as a candidate for the legislature. He joined the Democratic Party and was nominated by the Democratic governor three times to a position as a judge; the Republican-majority legislature rejected Walker each time. In 1896 Walker was nominated as a candidate for United States President by the Negro Party.
Early life
Edward Garrison Walker was born in Edgefield, SC in 1830 to Eliza Walker, the widow of David Walker, who had died in early August 1830. At the time when the couple was expecting the birth of Edward, they already had a daughter named Lydia Ann. In 1830 a tuberculosis epidemic in Boston took the lives of Lydia Ann on July 30 and her father David on August 6. David had collapsed and died at the entrance to his store. He was a free black from Wilmington, North Carolina who had settled in Boston about 1825, where he became a prominent abolitionist.When Walker died, his widow Eliza was unable to keep up the annual payments of $266 made to George Parkman for the purchase of their home, and she lost it. In his pamphlet Appeal, Walker had earlier written: "But I must, really, observe that generally falls into the hands of some white persons. The wife and children of the deceased may weep and lament if they please, but the estate will be kept snug enough of its white possessor."
Eliza Butler Walker met Alexander Dewson, whom she married on September 19, 1833. He also had a son, Alexander, born about 1830, whom he brought to the family with her and her son Edward. They had a daughter, Margareta, who died at five months of age on April 11, 1837, of lung fever. Dewson was listed as a laborer in the city directory in 1837.
By 1848 and at least through 1852, the Dewsons lived on 13 Southac Street in Charlestown. Southac Street is not Phillips Street, located in Beacon Hill. Alexander Dewson died at the age of 46 of consumption on May 3, 1851. The young Edward Walker attended public schools in Charlestown, Massachusetts.
Leatherwork
Walker received training in working with leather as a young man. He established a business that eventually employed 15 people.Abolitionist
Walker became an abolitionist as his father had been. In 1851 he collaborated with attorney Robert Morris and activist Lewis Hayden of the Boston Vigilance Committee to gain the release of Shadrach Minkins, a fugitive slave from Virginia who had been arrested in Boston by US Marshals under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The men helped Minkins hide and travel via the Underground Railroad to Canada, where he settled in Montreal. The men were "well-known Boston abolitionists" who were praised for their efforts to obtain Minkins' release. Many Boston residents resisted the 1850 Law, resenting its requirement that officials in free states support slaveholders' efforts to take back slaves.Walker also worked for equal rights. Blacks in Boston gained integration in city schools for their children in 1855, by a state legislative act after years of lobbying in the city and at the legislature.
Marriage and children
Walker married Hannah Jane Van Vronker on November 15, 1858, in Boston. He was 28 and his bride was 23. Hannah was born in Lowell on October 10, 1835, one of Henry and Lucinda Webster Van Vronker's three daughters.The couple had a son named Edwin E. Walker about 1859 and a daughter Grace born about 1864. The family lived with Walker's mother, Eliza Dewson, also recorded as Susan, in Charlestown. Hannah is not living with the family by 1870.
Lawyer
Having been inspired by Blackstone's Commentaries, which he consulted while trying to free Minkins in 1851, Walker "read the law", serving as an apprentice at the Georgetown, Massachusetts office of Charles A. Tweed and John Q. A. Griffin. He also continued to run his leatherwork business. He became the first black lawyer in the state of Massachusetts when he was admitted to the bar in May 1861 in Suffolk County. He was described as one of Boston's "prominent" attorneys.Massachusetts State Legislature
In 1866 Walker, representing Boston's Ward 3, and Charles Lewis Mitchell representing Ward 6, were the first black men elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature. Both men were Republicans.On Tuesday, November 6, 1866, Claude August Crommelin remarked in his diary about the otherwise quiet election day:
Only the election of two colored men as representatives in the state legislature made some noise here and gave sufficient matter for conversation, as this is the first election of its kind. Messrs. Mitchell and Walker are the first of the 'despised race' who are called to post such as this one. And that a combination of circumstances has caused that Mr. Walker is representing Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue makes the case even more special.
As the men began their one-year terms in 1867, Reconstruction following the end of the Civil War was underway. Passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the US Constitution had resulted in the abolition of slavery in 1865, granting of full citizenship and protection of the law to freedmen in 1868, and granting suffrage to African-American men to vote and hold public office in 1870. At the same time, states were drafting laws to recognize the new status of freedmen.
During his term as a legislator, Walker opposed many of the approaches developed by fellow state Republicans. They did not nominate him for a second term. He joined the Democratic Party, as one of many Boston African Americans to switch parties due to dissatisfaction with the Republicans. Because of his prominence in the community, he drew other African Americans with him to the Democrats.
Subsequent Political Career
Walker was nominated as a state judge by Democratic Governor Benjamin F. Butler at a time when the Republicans held a majority in the state legislature. They voted to give the position to George Lewis Ruffin, an African American considered by the Republicans to be "loyal" to their party. Walker was nominated for judgeships three times by the governor but rejected by the Republican-dominated legislature each time.In 1885 Walker, with wealthy restaurateur George T. Downing and other black leaders, formed the Negro Political Independence Movement. Walker was elected Colored National League president in 1890. He was nominated for United States president in 1896 by the Negro Party.