James Walker, a resident of the Fourth District, was born January 30, 1831, in
Orange County, N. C., and was the third son born to Empson and Martha (Kerry)
Walker. He came with his parents to Tennessee in 1842 and located in Haywood
County, ten miles east of Brownsville, where he remained until they died. Mr.
Walker’s ancestors were of Irish and English descent. He was raised on a
farm, working for his father until twenty-one years of age, then assumed the
management of it and continued until he was thirty years old, when he moved to
his present farm in Lauderdale County. While in Haywood County, in 1852, he
was elected to the magistrate’s office and served six years, and also served
in this county six years. He went into the Confederate Army in May, 1861, as
third lieutenant in Company K, Sixth Tennessee Infantry; but upon the re-
organization of the Tennessee troops, he was in the Fourteenth Tennessee
Cavalry, and was wounded at the battle of Shiloh, in the right arm, but was
only disabled for a short time and remained in the service until the
surrender. He was married in March, 1868, to Ellen Anthony, daughter of
William A. and Eliza (Dycen) Anthony, and to them were born six children: Mark
R., Malinda, James Empson, Albert S. (who died in infancy), Martha eline and
Knox. Mr. Walker has accumulated his property since the war of his own
efforts and is now in comfortable circumstances, and one of the most
substantial citizens of the county. He is a member of the Presbyterian
Church, is now fifty-six years old and never used any kind of intoxicating
liquor or used tobacco in any form; never had any legal trouble on his own
account, and was never sued in his life. Mr. Walker is a Democrat and a
strict prohibitionist.

Goodspeed’s Biographies of Lauderdale Co., TN