My Genealogy Hound

JOHN P. WALKER, grocer, Pittsburgh, is a native of Alsace, Germany, born at Three Fountains, Sept. 28, 1837. His father, Francis Walker, a son of Matthias Walker, a farmer, and for several years mayor of his native town, married Mary R., a daughter of Anthony Girard, a farmer. In 1842 Francis Walker immigrated with his family to America. For sixteen years he followed agricultural pursuits in Erie county, N. Y., and in 1860 came to Pittsburgh, where he died in 1872, at the age of seventy-seven; his widow died in 1886, at the age of eighty-three. Of their eight children all are living except the eldest son, John P. being the fifth. In 1854 he went to learn the art of glass-blowing, and finished his apprenticeship at Pittsburgh, where he arrived in 1859, after spending two years at Wheeling, W. Va. In 1866 he became a member of the glassmaking firm of Stewart, Estep & Co., selling out seven years later. In 1874 he established a grocery business on the site he now occupies, where he built a fine brick building in 1885. He was one of the incorporators of the German Savings and Deposit Bank, and has been two years a director. He was one of the founders of St. Peter’s R. C. Church, in which he was eight years a trustee; he has always been a democrat. Mr. Walker married, Nov. 11, 1862, Pauline, daughter of Peter and Mary R. (Bellotte) Schlernitzauer, all natives of Three Fountains, Alsace, and following are the names of their children: Frank, Victoria, John, Mary, Albert, Theodore and Leo.