By Christopher Shields, Director of Library and Archives
A highlight of my work in the Library & Archives is helping people learn more about family members who lived in Greenwich in the past. More often than not, I am able to provide additional information and/or suggestions for where to look next.
Inevitably, the details that are found lead to additional questions. They provide basic information (where someone lived, where they worked, etc.), but often don’t provide real insight into the lived experience of the person. The result is a frustratingly shallow sense of the individual.
A long time Greenwich resident named Henry Louis Walker (nicknamed “Alabam”) is one such historical figure that I would really like to know more about. The information that I have found indicates that he willingly shared stories of the experiences of his long life, but it does not appear that the details were ever captured by those lucky enough to hear them firsthand.
Mr. Walker was born around 1827 on a large plantation in Locust Hill, Albemarle County, Virginia to enslaved parents Lewis and Clara Walker.
His nickname “Alabam” is attributed to the fact that he worked in “household service“ in Alabama just prior to heading north to join his mother (who had self-emancipated from the plantation where she lived in bondage). After a brief stay in New York, he made his home in Greenwich in 1883. His mother may have been headed for Canada but had found employment in or near Greenwich.
Mr. Walker’s wife, Louvinia (Simmons) Walker, was born in Florence, Alabama in 1855 and it seems likely that was where the couple met. They married in 1869 and are said to have had 22 children (seven of which may have died shortly after birth as they were unnamed). By 1939, only 4 sons (Harry, Arthur, James, and Henry Jr.) were still living.
Walker worked as a dynamite handler for local contractor and businessman Henry C. Webb who employed the explosives to clear rock for roads and other construction projects. The 1920 federal census lists his occupation as “Powderman” and his home address as 71 Hamilton Avenue. This location (near Edgewood Avenue) was so closely associated with Mr. Walker that it was known by the locals as “Alabam’s corner” and referenced many times as such in various newspaper accounts.
Walker was apparently well known and appreciated by a large cross section of Greenwich society. A newspaper account notes that he had “many friends which include those high in political, civic and business life, who regard him as a veritable rock of honesty, loyalty, integrity and kindness.”
A 1939 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association authored by Greenwich surgeon Dr. J. Bayard Clark recounts how Mr. Walker made medical history when he had a
prostatectomy at the estimated age of 112.. The speed of his recovery from the procedure seems like it was exceptional, especially for someone of such advanced years.
Henry Lewis Walker passed away at the Municipal Hospital in Greenwich in June 1943. Although the exact year of his birth seems to be undetermined, it was said he was 116 years old. Longevity may have been a family trait. It was said that his grandfather, Charles Green, died in Staunton, Virginia at the age of 113.
This brief sketch of Mr. Walker’s life illustrates just how many gaps still exist. I wish he was alive when the Greenwich Library’s exemplary Oral History Project was established; he would have been a remarkable candidate for inclusion.
I hope that a descendant of the Walker family (or the descendant of someone who knew him) will read this and be able to share more information about the life of Mr. and Mrs. Walker. A 1934 Greenwich Time article acknowledging the couple’s 65th wedding anniversary notes that they had “14 grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren.” Maybe someone has family photographs or other documentation. I have been surprised before by the discoveries that have been brought to my attention at the Historical Society.
Image pictured above: Greenwich Time, September 16, 1937, page 20.
