JAMES WALKER. 485 



JAMI<:S WALKER. 



James Walker was born in Burlington (at tliat time a part of 

 Woburn), Mass.. on the IGtIi of August, 1794. He fitted for college 

 at the Groton Academ\% which was then under the charge of Mr. 

 Caleb Butler. This preparation extended (with several interruptions) 

 from the autumn of 18;)7 to that of 1810. lie entered Harvard Col- 

 lege in 1810 and graduated in 1814. Though he held no prominent 

 rank in his class during the freshman year, on account of his imper- 

 fect and irregular course of preparatory studies, he steadily gained 

 ground, and, at the close of the senior year, the second English oration 

 was assigned to him. He was not, however, so engrossed in liis 

 studies as to have no leisure for the society of his classmates, whose 

 respect and love he early won and always retained. Their apprec-ia- 

 tion of his abilities and character was manifested by electing him to 

 be their class orator. The intimacies which he formed in college v,'ere 

 judiciously chosen, were darkened by no cloud, and terminated only 

 with life. On the last Commencement, the seven other surviving mem- 

 bers of his class were invited to dine with him ; and all but one were 

 able to be present, to celebrate the cixtieth anniversary of their gradu- 

 ation. Mr. AYalker spent the first year after leaving college at 

 Phillips' Exeter Academy as an assistant teacher. He then returned 

 to Cambridge, and began his theological studies as a resident graduate 

 on the 15th of October, 1815. His class is entered in the Triennial 

 Catalogue as the first in the Divinity School, graduating from it in 

 1817. But the school can hardly be said to have been organized at 

 that time. It had no teachers exclusively devoted to it. Most of the 

 instruction was given by Dr. Henry Ware, the Hollis Professor in 

 Divinity, assisted by President Kirkland, Professor Sydney AVillard, 

 and Mr. Andrews Norton. 



At a meeting of the Boston Ministerial Association, held at tlie 

 house of Dr. William E. Channing on May 5th, 1817, Mr. Walker 

 received the usual aj^probation or license to preach; and he preached 

 for the first time, on the Sunday following (May 11th), for the Rev. 

 Samuel Sewall in his native town. On the 22d of September, 1817, 

 he had a call to settle in Lexington, Mass., which he declined. On 

 the 11th of February, 1818, he was invited to the Harvard Chr.rch in 

 Charlestown, Mass., and was ordained on the loth of April. The 

 history of this society virtually begins with his ministry, as his only 

 predecessor, the Rev. Thomas Prentiss, died in aboui six months after 

 his settlement. Other young ministers of that day created at first a 



