Solano County
Biographies
WILLIAM WALKER
City Treasurer of Vallejo, has been a resident of that town since 1854 and of this State two years longer. He was born in Dumfries, Scotland, inheriting the best qualities of the Scotch character. At the age of thirty years he emigrated to the United States, landing at New York city, spent two years in New York State, and then purchased a farm about ten miles from Lansing, the capital of Michigan, when that place had but two houses. His land, which was densely wooded, he cleared by his own hands, devoting seven years to that work. In 1852 he fitted out two wagons with six horses and came with his wife and two brothers overland to the center of the gold excitement, Placerville, arriving August 10, after having left Lansing March 1. The first two years in this State he kept a store for miners’ supplies at Johnson’s Cut-off, in El Dorado County, most of his trade being the newly arrived immigrants. While there he also freighted goods from Sacramento to the mines, realizing sometimes as much as 30 cents a pound as freight. Disposing of his goods in Sacramento, he moved to Benicia just as the capital of the State was being removed from that point to Sacramento. After spending about a year in Benicia, in the employ of the Pacific Mail Company, he removed to Vallejo, where he engaged in his present business as a dealer in lumber, wood, coal, lime, etc., etc. About five years after his arrival in Vallejo, he built the wharf which he still owns and occupies for his business, in which he has been engaged for thirty-six years, and by which he has accumulated a handsome competency. Four years ago the citizens elected him City Treasurer, which position he now holds; but he is still actively engaged also in the management of his old business, supplying a large share of the coal, wood, and building supplies used in Vallejo.
He was married in Michigan, in 1850, to Miss Jane Allen, a native of Ayrshire, Scotland, who died in 1877, in Vallejo; and Mr. Walker, in 1879, married Mrs. Maria McKay, a native of Nova Scotia. Mr. Walker’s parents, John and Jane (Hay) Walker, are both natives of Scotland.
Memorial & Biographical History of Northern California, The Lewis Publishing Co., 1891
pp 509
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
ABRAHAM JAY BUCKLES
Judge of the Superior Court of Solano County, California, was born August 2, 1846, in Delaware County, Indiana. Up to the time of the war he had received but little education. He enlisted as a private in Company E, Nineteenth Regiment Indiana Infantry, June, 1861. This regiment became a part of the “Iron Brigade,” First Division, First Army Corps, Army of the Potomac. He was with the regiment at the front in all the great campaigns of the army, except the Peninsula. At the second Bull Run battle he was shot through the right thigh and taken prisoner, but effected his escape soon after. Prior to the Gettysburg campaign he had been detailed, at his own request, as one of the color guard, and during the Gettysburg battle he rescued the flag of his regiment, but was soon after struck in the right shoulder with a rifle ball, which so disabled him that he could never after carry a knapsack. When sufficiently recovered, although the wound was not healed, he returned to his regiment, and was at once made the color-bearer thereof, a position he long had sought. At the battle of the Wilderness, while carrying the flag he was shot through the body, and when carried to the rear was informed by the surgeon that he must die, as his wound was a fatal one, and for this reason, and owing to the great number of wounded who would in all probability recover, but little attention was paid to him. So certain were all that he would not recover the report went forth “Killed in the Wilderness.” In 1886 he recovered a small Bible, carried by him in that battle and lost there, which on the fly-leaf bore the words “Killed in the Wilderness.” However, being of a strong constitution and possessed of an iron will he recovered sufficiently to return to the front where he found his regiment so depleted in numbers that it had been consolidated with the Twentieth Indiana, and in this regiment he was given a commission as Second Lieutenant, dated February 27, 1865. At the beginning of Grant’s last campaign, at Petersburg, March 25, 1865, and just fourteen days before Lee’s surrender, while leading his company in an assault against a line of rebel picket pits, he was struck by a ball in the right leg which necessitated its amputation a few inches from the body.
Returning to his home at the close of the war, and having sufficiently recovered his strength, he attended a private school for about nine months, after which he taught several primary schools, worked at whatever he could get to do, employing all his leisure moments in reading law; and, on being admitted to the Indiana bar in 1875, he removed with is [sic] family to Solano County, California, where he soon built up a lucrative practice. In 1879, during the new constitution campaign, he became quite prominent as a public speaker in the debates against the adoption of the constitution [sic]. At the fall election of the same year he was elected District Attorney of Solano County, and was re-elected in 1882, and at the election of 1884 he was elected Judge of the Superior Court of his county, a position he has filled with honor and distinction, and he will be re-elected this year (1890) without opposition.
He is a prominent Grand Army man, being now the Department Commander of the Department of California, a member of the Farragut Post, No. 4, G.A.R., Vallejo. In 1845 [?] he was Superior Chancellor of the order C.R.C., and in 1889 was Grand Chancellor of the Jurisdiction of California K. of P. He is also a member of I.O.O.F., A.O.U.W., O.B.L., and U.A.O.D. He is the second son of Thomas N. and Rachel (Graham) Buckles. His early ancestry on his father’s side came from England and settled in Virginia long before the Revolutionary war. His mother’s people were of Irish extraction. In December, 1865, he married Louisa B. Conn of Muncie, Indiana, the fourth daughter of Simon and Sarah (O’Neil) Conn, by whom he had but two children, Lola D., the wife of George B. Donaldson, and Adda Jessie, now engaged in the millinery business in Suisun, California.
Memorial & Biographical History of Northern California, The Lewis Publishing Co., 1891
pp 510-511
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler