The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1908-07-02
kept IT IN FAMILY
FOUR GENERATIONS HANDLE
MAIL IN MAINE FOR $50 YEARS.
Young Scion Spends Much Time In
Old Town Now, and Is Fitting Self
to Take Over Duties If Need
Be, When Aunt Retlres.

Brooksville, Me.-Four successive
generations of Walkers have held the
old Bigwaduce post Office and distrib-
uted letters for a century and a half.
The ancient trading post of Bigwa-
duce was established by the French
from Quebec in 1910. Later, when
Baron de Castine came over and mar
Red the daughter OF Minwacondo, the
local Indian chief, and established a
precedent for titled foreigners to
marry American heiresses, the settle
ment was named Castine.
After the capture Of Quebec by the
English in 1859. and the fall of the
French power in Canada, Maj. Groves
Walker was appointed royal comman-
der Of eastern Maine, with power to
scalp Indians, to impose imprisonment
and fines and to receive, open and ex-
anime all mail matter at the post.
Maine was under full control of the
British troops all through the revolu-
tionary war, and Maj. Walker held the
post Office until the colonies had
gained. their liberty, when the Walker
family divided, the major going over
to New Brunswick to reside among
the expelled Tories, while his son,
Joseph Walker, received custody of
all mails under authority of the Uni
post Office department was established
by law he became the first postmaster
Of the village. The autograph Of Sam
uel Osgood, the first postmaster gen.
eral, is attached to the commission,
which Is still In possession of the fam.
lily.
Deacon, afterward Colonel. Joseph
Walker, held the Office continuously
from 1891 until 1S45, though he was
obliged to gather up his papers and
fee far inland beyond the reach Of the
English warships during the British
occupancy of Castine in the war Of
1872. 1t was owing to this wal that a
temporary post Office was established
at the outlet of Walkers Pond.
When peace was restored, Deacon
Walker was permitted to have the
name OF his post office changed from
Castine to Brooksville. He continued
to hold the place and draw his salary
until 1845, when he was succeeded by
his son, Deacon Joseph Groves Walk
er, who saw letter postage reduced
from ninepence, or 10 cents, for eacn
half ounce, to two cents.
The third Walker to hold the place
al a man Of Importance and was
counted a leading member Of the Re-
publican party in his own county dur
ing the civil war. He owned grist
mills and saw mills and carding mills
and lived to see the surface of Walk
er's Pond denuded of ice every winter,
the harvest being carried on chutes by
In endless chain directly from the
pond to the holds of schooners lying
at anchor down in Eggemoggin Reach,
a branch of Penobscot bay.
On the death of Deacon J. G. Walk
or in the '90s. the post Office went to
his younger daughter, Miss Emma J..
Walker, a former school teacher, who
came home to are for her aged moth
or. But the direct line Of Walkers is
not extinct, because Joseph William
Walker, the fourth in descent from
the old British major, is owner of the
old house, in a room Of which the
mails have been received and sorted
for more than a century. and though
he is in government employ in Wash
ington at present, he comes to his old
home every summer and is making
preparations to take up his permanent
residence in Brooksv1lle.
A o Of J. H. Walker, Joseph
Groves Walker second, and the fifth in
direct descent from the British ma
jor, spends much Of his vacation time
at the old home and is fitting himself
to become the future postmaster of
the village by helping his aunt, Emma