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Joseph Marshall Walker
14th
Governor of Louisiana
Preceded by Isaac Johnson
Governor by Election
Served from January 28, 1850
Served to January 18,1853
Left Office by Term ended
Succeeded by Paul O. Hebert
 
Military Lieutenant of Dragoons
early 1800s Spanish Military
Military School Master
Chihuahua, Mexico
 
Born
Location		 July 1, 1784
New Orleans
Died
Location		 January 21, 1856
near Alexandria, Louisiana
Cause Long Illness
Age 71
 
Party Democratic
Education Mexican Military School
Profession Planter
 
Spouse Catherine Carter
Children 10
Plantation Whitehall
Religion  
Burial On Plantation

1850 - 1853

Joseph Marshall Walker, the 14th Governor of Louisiana died on January 21, 1856.  He was buried on his plantation, located ten miles west of Alexandria.

A subsequent owner of Walker's plantation decided he would like to grow crops where the cemetery was located.  The monuments and headstones were moved to the side of the field near Hwy 496, aka Hot Wells Road, aka S. Bayou Rapides Road. 

Governor Walker was the first governor inaugurated in Baton Rouge, in what at the time was the new state capitol building.  The governor's term in office was shortened by the state constitutional convention proceedings which decreed that an election for governor be held in 1852 and take office in 1853.  Walker choose not to contest for the office again.

 

 


Gov. Walker Headstone Site

The field in the background is the location from which these stones were moved many
decades ago to make room for crops.  Reinterments did not occur, so the remains of the governor and family reside in this field.  There were other stones, monuments and tombs in the plantation cemetery that are not accounted for.  The governor's monument is the rightmost.  The top of the monument is missing.  It was at one time nine feet tall.

Gov. Walker Monument Engraving

In Memory of
Joseph Walker
Born in New Orleans July 1, 1784
Died in the Parish of Rapides
January 21st, 1856.
Aged 71 Years 6 Months 21 Days

from the year 1822 until near the period of his death,
he was engaged in the Public Service.
Having been frequently
Elected a member of the general Assembly
of the State of which also
he was Governor from Jan. 1850 to Jan. 1853.
Whether as a
Private Citizen, Legislator or Chief Magis-
trate, he won
Universal Confidence and Esteem
and died
Respected and Regretted by all
who knew him.

Governor Walker's remains lie somewhere in this field.

 

The governor's grandson, Captain W. C. Calvit of Alexandria became a professor and the President of the Louisiana Public School Teachers' Association in1893.

 

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