James Barr Walker

Background

James Barr Walker was born in Philadelphia, the son of James and Margaret (Barr) Walker; his father died before the child's birth. In his infancy his mother moved with her family to a frontier farm near Pittsburgh.

Education

After a little schooling, James was apprenticed to learn printing.

Career

Subsequently, finding no employment in Pittsburgh, he walked to Philadelphia and obtained work in printing-shops there; later he was similarly employed in New York City, and for a time he taught school at New Durham, N. J. On business for an uncle he went to Ravenna, Ohio, where he bought a half-interest in the Western Courier and began the practice of law. In the late twenties, apparently, he entered Western Reserve College, then at Hudson, Ohio, where he had an intense religious experience and was fired by Theodore D. Weld with abolitionist enthusiasm. Leaving college after about a year to become an agent for the American Bible Society, he traveled over western Ohio, which was then just being settled. For the two years following he conducted a religious paper at Hudson, but opposition to his anti-slavery views caused him to sell it. After a little theological study he was ordained, September 21, 1837, by the Presbytery of Portage, and became pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Akron, Ohio, which he served for two years. In 1839 he moved to Cincinnati, to publish the book which gave him fame, The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation. It was issued in 1841, anonymously, and by 1855, when it appeared in a fifth enlarged edition, still anonymously, it had sold over twenty thousand copies, was being extensively used as a textbook in the United States, and had been published in England and Scotland and translated into French, German, Italian, Welsh, and Hindustani. The book held its position until the 1870's, the later printings bearing Walker's name. The appeal of this treatise on Christian apologetics lay in its original method and in its clear, untechnical language. In 1840 Walker established in Cincinnati a religious paper, The Watchman of the Valley. His anti-slavery views and his Oberlin theology aroused hostility, but despite advice to leave the city he continued the paper until 1842. He then became pastor of the Congregational Church in Mansfield, Ohio, which, composed chiefly of abolitionists and temperance reformers, flourished under his leadership. In 1846 he organized in Chicago another religious paper, The Herald of the Prairies. After managing this for four years he was recalled to the Mansfield Church and served it until 1857, leaving to take charge of the Congregational Church of Sandusky, Ohio. Having accumulated independent means, in 1863 he left Sandusky to live at Mansfield. From 1859 to 1865 he was a lecturer in Chicago Theological Seminary. For a Christian college in a Christian community, on the Oberlin model, he bought a large tract in Benzie County, Mich. , and after two years spent in preparation for the enterprise, he took up his residence at Benzonia, where for five years he lived in frontier conditions. He was a member of the Michigan Senate in the session of 1865. Because of financial mismanagement he left the community, giving his lands for educational purposes. In 1870 he became professor of intellectual and moral philosophy and belles-lettres in Wheaton College, Wheaton, Ill. , and in 1871, pastor of the Congregational Church there. At Wheaton he lived until his death, serving the church until 1880 and teaching until 1884.

Achievements

• He was a clergyman, editor, and author famous for his book The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation. He published several other theological books, which sold largely but were not as popular as his first, and in 1881, Experiences of Pioneer Life in the Early Settlements and Cities of the West, an autobiography.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation, by an American Citizen J.B. Walker.

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Philosophy of the Plan of Salvtion: A Book for the Times

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Philosophy of the plan of salvation

    ( It has now been about one hundred and sixty years since...)

  • Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation. A Book for the Times. With an Introductory Essay by Calvin E. Stowe

    (Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)

  • The philosophy of the plan of salvation

Connections

On June 6, 1833, he married Rebecca, daughter of Thomas Randall of Bridgewater, Massachussets. His first wife died in 1875 and on April 3, 1876, he married Mary A. (Myrtle) Weamer, widow of Capt. George Weamer of Norwalk, Ohio. He had no children, but reared in his home thirteen orphans.

Father:

James Walker

Mother:

Margaret (Barr) Walker

Spouse:

Rebecca

Spouse:

Mary A. (Myrtle) Weamer