Robert Walker
By Malvin E. Moore III
Robert Walker was one of the giants of early Johnson County history. As the country’s first justice of the peace he played a seminal role in the county’s civic and political development and was an early civic and community leader.
He was born in Schenectady County, New York, to immigrant Scot and Scot-Irish parents. Not much is known abut Walker’s early years, but in 1823, he married Ellen McWade of Renesselaer County, New York. A few years later, Robert and Ellen and their five children (another child was born later in Iowa) joined the westward migration and traveled by covered wagon to Iowa. Nine of his 10 siblings also migrated westward and settled throughout the Midwest.
Robert Walker first appears in Johnson County records in 1838. He and his family first settled on property in the Pleasant Valley Township, and he became active in the civic life of the community.
Walker was appointed Johnson County’s first justice of the peace in 1839, one year after Iowa was accorded territorial status. On May 1, 1839, he administered the oath of office to the Capitol Commissioners so they could legally locate the territorial capitol in Iowa City.
The first election in Pleasant Valley Township was held at his home in 1846, and he was a member of the county’s first two grand juries. Walker also served as a county supervisor and appeared in historic records as helping apportion funds for schools. He was a member of the Johnson County Agricultural Society and was active in the Old Settlers organization. He was a member of the committee that organized the Universalist Church in Iowa City.
A year after the death of his wife, Ellen in 1852, Walker married Arys Byington Mygatt, a widow, and moved to Iowa City, now the civic, financial and educational center of the county. By the time of the 1860 Census, Walker was living in rural Tiffin, where he resided until his death in 1879. His grave is on a rise beneath a pine tree in Oak Hill Cemetery, east of Tiffin.
