Jesse Walker
Jesse Walker was born June 07, 1766 in Buckingham County, Virginia. He was the eldest son of Elmore Walker and Mary LaSelle (although at least one source shows Elmore's wife as Susan Chatalene).
Jesse converted to Methodism at age 20. Susannah Webley, daughter of a wealthy planter, also converted at the same meeting.
Jesse and Susannah married, probably about 1787 in Virginia.
He married the daughter of a wealthy planter who was heir to much property in slaves. These she manumitted, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, and as the wife of a Methodist minister, than to enjoy the ease and comfort which could be secured by the sweat of unpaid toil. Like Moses, she no doubt had respect unto the recompense of the reward, and, no doubt, like him, she had entered upon that reward and does not regret her choice.
- History of Will County, Illinois, Wm. LeBaron, Jr., & Co., 1878 (www.iltrails.org/will/fatherwalk.htm)
Jesse entered the ministry in 1804. He became a circuit preacher in Illinois about 1806. Illinois had been claimed by Virginia in 1778, and was still under their control; the Territory of Illinois was not created unti l809.
It is characteristic of the times, and shows how loosely the Methodist clergy of that day were held by worldly interests, that Walker returned home from the Conference about noon, commenced preparations at once for the journey, and by 10 o'clock of the next day, he and his family were on the way to their new field of labor and self-denial. The state of the country at that time rendered only one mode of travel possible--i.e., on horseback--and four horses were required for himself, family and possessions--one for himself, one for his wife and young daughter, one for his eldest daughter, a girl of sixteen, while the fourth carried, not his library, for an itinerant had only a hymn book and bible, but a small stock of Methodist books, the sale of which must eke out his slender salary. Such a mode of travel would not admit of carrying even a single Saratoga trunk, had such arks been at that time invented. Happily they were not needed, as the wardrobe of each member of the family consisted of only one suit besides the one worn, and these were spun and woven by the mother and daughter, and were of linsey-woolsey or jeans!
- History of Will County, Illinois, Wm. LeBaron, Jr., & Co., 1878 (www.iltrails.org/will/fatherwalk.htm)
He was a missionary among the Indians in Illinois and Missouri for several years, including the Kickapoos and Pottawatomies.
The first Methodist sacrement in Missouri was administered in the Jacob Zumwalt house in O'Fallon, Missouri in 1807. The remains of this house were catalogued in the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1937, part of the chimney still stands in Ft. Zumwalt Park in O'Fallon.
He became presiding elder of the Illinois district in 1812. He established the first Methodist church in St. Louis in 1820. In 1823, he was with the Pottawatomies along the DuPage River in Illinois. In 1825, he established the first church in Washington, Illinois. He preached in the Chicago area in 1831, before the city incorporated.
Two books were written about "Father Walker": A Voice in the Wilderness: Jesse Walker, "the Daniel Boone of Methodism" by Almer Pennewell (Parthenon Press, 1958) and Jesse Walker, Pioneer Preacher by Richard J Crook (1976).
Jesse Walker died on October 05, 1835 in Plainfield, Illinois, which was originally settled by his family as Walker's Grove in 1829.
In 1850, his remains were moved to a new cemetery, and a monument was placed there that reads "At the Rock River Conference, in 1850, his remains were removed to this place by his sons in the Gospel, who erect this stone to transmit his revered name to coming generations."