Walker Brooke

Background

Walker Brooke was born on 25 December 1813 at Page Brooke, Clarke County, Virginia, United States. He was the son of Humphrey Brooke and Sarah Walker Page.

Education

Walker Brooke attended the public schools in Richmond, Virginia and Georgetown, D.C. He graduated from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1835.

Career

Walker Brooke was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1838. He taught school in Kentucky before moving to Lexington, Holmes County, Mississippi, in the 1840s where he built up a large law practice. He was elected to the lower house of the Mississippi legislature in 1848 and to the upper house in 1850 and 1852. In 1852-1853, he served as a member of the Mississippi Union party in the United States Senate. As a cooperation member of the Mississippi constitutional convention of 1861, he was a cautious member of the Committee of 15 which drew up the Ordinance of Secession.

In the provisional Congress, he was a member of the committee to organize the Executive Department and served on the Inauguration and the Patents Committees. Brooke became a Democrat but was defeated for the Confederate Senate by James Phelan in late 1861.

In 1862, President Davis appointed him to the Board of Commissioners under the Sequestration Acting. There he dealt with the confiscated estates of alien enemies. In late 1863, he was provost marshal of Vicksburg. Although he had much experience and ability, Brooke did little during the remainder of the war. He might have fallen out of sympathy with the Confederate cause and merely retired to private life.

Little is known of his postwar career, save that his law practice declined and that he lost the will to participate in the reconstruction of his state.

Achievements

• Walker Brooke was a member of the Mississippi State House of Representatives and a member of the Mississippi State Senate. He is best known for serving as a Senator from Mississippi in the United States Senate.

Politics

At first, Brooke was a member of the Whig party. He voted for secession and was the only Whig in the Mississippi delegation elected to the provisional Congress at Montgomery. In 1861 he became affiliated with the Democratic Party.

Connections

In 1840, Walker married Jane Jefferson Lewis Eskridge. Their children were Roberta, Lucy Jefferson, Callowhill Minnis, Walker, James Humphrey, Francis Temple, Horace Miller, Hugh H., Jane Walker, Mary Sims.

Father:

Humphrey Brooke

Mother:

Sarah Walker Page Brooke

Wife:

Jane Jefferson Lewis Eskridge Brooke

1824-1904

Daughter:

Roberta Brooke Smith

1842-1890

Daughter:

Lucy Jefferson Brooke Matthews

1844-1932

Son:

Callowhill Minnis Brooke

1847-1911

Son:

Walker Brooke

1848-1849

Son:

James Humphrey Brooke

1851-1851

Son:

Francis Temple Brooke

1851-1878

Son:

Horace Miller Brooke

1854-1945

Son:

Hugh H. Brooke

1855-1933

Daughter:

Jane Walker Brooke James

1858-1916

Daughter:

Mary Sims Brooke

1864-1927

References

• Biographical & Historical Memoirs of Mississippi
  1999
• Publications Of The Mississippi Historical Society, Volume 6
  2016