Leicester and Juliet Walker, Pioneer Residents of the Firelands

Pictured above is the home of Leicester and Juliet Walker, in Perkins Township, Erie County, Ohio. The home was at what is now the intersection of Milan road and Hull Road, on the west side of Milan Road.

 The Firelands Pioneer of September, 1876 states that Leicester Walker was born in Herkimer County, New York in 1796, and he was orphaned as a child. He settled in Sandusky in 1818, and assisted in building the first frame homes in the Sandusky area. He married Juliet Andrews of Richland County, Ohio in 1825. It is said that both Leicester and Juliet Walker often attended to the needy and sick. Leicester was an abolitionist who was “an active supporter of the government in its efforts to crush the slaveholder’s rebellion.” (Three of the Walker sons served in the Union Army during Civil War.) In 1832, Leicester and Juliet Walker moved to Perkins Township, and they raised a large family of seven sons and two daughters.

On March 31, 1875, the Walkers celebrated their Golden Anniversary. Unfortunately, not long after, on May 6, 1875, Leicester Walker died at his home in Perkins Township. Mrs. Walker died at the home of her daughter in Michigan on September 13, 1875. The Walkers were interred at Oakland Cemetery in Sandusky, Ohio.

The pioneer settlers of the Firelands area worked the land, established churches and businesses, and formed governmental units to oversee the region where they lived. To learn more about the earliest residents of Erie and Huron Counties, see the Firelands Pioneer a multi-volume set of books housed in the Reference Services section of the Sandusky Library.

Helen Gallup Pyle

Helen Gallup was the daughter of Frank Gallup and the former Fannie Walker, born in Sandusky, Ohio in 1892. Both Helen’s father Frank and her paternal grandfather Mozart Gallup were associated with the Sandusky Tool Company. Above is a close-up from her third grade class picture at Monroe School about 1900. During her later years of high school, Helen attended Rogers Hall School for Girls in Lowell, Massachusetts, graduating in 1911.

In 1917, Helen Gallup married Joseph Gilpin Pyle, Jr., an attorney. The marriage took place at Grace Church in Sandusky.

A copy of the wedding invitation is in a collection of historic invitations from Sandusky area events in the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.

Mrs. Helen Gallup Pyle was very active in the Martha Pitkin Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. An article from the February 8, 1922 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal reported that both Mr. and Mrs. Pyle took part in a group of period dances at the D.A.R. Ball held at the Odd Fellows Hall in Sandusky. Helen served as both a teacher and a dancer for the special event. 

By 1927 Mr. and Mrs. Joseph G. Pyle, Jr. had moved to Pasadena, California with their two children, Joseph G. Pyle, III and Hermoine. Both of the Pyle children would later serve in the U.S. Military during World War II. Corporal Joseph G. Pyle, III was in an Infantry unit in the South Pacific in 1944, and Hermoine Pyle was with the Women’s Army Corps branch of the U.S. Army. 

A brief article in Sandusky Register of July 14, 1934 stated that Mr. and Mrs. Joseph G. Pyle, Jr. had divorced. Mr. Pyle passed away in 1940. Mrs. Helen Gallup Pyle died in York, Pennsylvania in 1965, and her remains were returned to Sandusky for burial in the Gallup family lot at Oakland Cemetery.

Charles W. and Alberta Walker French, a Family Tragedy, and Questionable Business Practices

Portraits of Charles Walker Wallace French and his wife, the former Miss Alberta Walker, were donated to the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center by a relative of Mrs. French. The photos were taken in Mansfield about 1902.

Charles W. French was born near Wakeman, Ohio in 1862. A lengthy biography of Mr. French appeared in the book A Centennial Biographical History of Richland County, edited by A. J. Baughman in 1901. In 1888, Mr. French worked in Sandusky, with an excavation contracting business. Alberta Walker was private secretary and bookkeeper for the business, which was operating in an upstairs floor of a building on Columbus Avenue. 

Tragedy struck the family on Thanksgiving morning, November 29, 1888, when Alberta’s father, Albert Walker, was killed in an explosion. Mr. French’s firm had been given a contract to excavate the cellar of the Odd Fellows building under construction on Washington Row. 

Mr. Walker was the foreman for the job. Albert had picked up six sticks of dynamite from Mr. French’s dynamite storage house on Perkins Avenue, and placed them on the stove of the office to thaw out. When the paper on the outside of the sticks of dynamite caught fire, Albert Walker rushed four of the sticks to the washstand to try to put out the caps. In the process, the dynamite exploded and Albert Walker was fatally injured. Mr. Walker died while on the way to the hospital.

On June 21, 1890, Charles W. French married Alberta Walker. By 1900, Mr. and Mrs. French were living in the Mansfield area, where he worked with several short line railroads (many of which failed), as well as serving as president of the Baker Stone Company; Mrs. French was the secretary of the company. 

About 1902, Charles and Alberta French moved to California, where Charles promoted a steel company and a railroad. He was involved with several schemes that did not come to fruition.  A New York Times article from August 25, 1921 reported that he was being investigated for securities fraud, and the September 3, 1921 issue of the Sandusky Register reported that he was arrested for fraud as a result of his failed schemes. He had been implicated in a widespread mail fraud scheme.

Mrs. Alberta French passed away in California in 1929, but to date we do not know when Charles W. French died. An article from the Los Angeles Times on August 31, 1921 stated that “Charles W. French is a financial hypnotist, wielding a strange, compelling power over a wealthy man, able to talk thousands of dollars out of a man against his own better judgment.”

Miles Walker, Civil War Veteran

In Block 5 of Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery is a monument in memory of Miles Walker and his wife, the former Nancy Williams. According to the 1870 U.S. Census for Erie County, Ohio, Miles Walker was born in Tennessee about 1830. His wife Nancy stated that she had been born in Alabama about 1832. Mr. and Mrs. Miles Walker were African Americans, and they were living on Hancock Street in Sandusky, Ohio in 1870. Miles Walker listed his occupation as laborer, and Nancy said that she was a housekeeper.

The Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1866, records Miles Walker’s enlistment date in Company E of the Third Ohio Volunteer Cavalry as October 14, 1863. His rank was recorded as “Cook.” Miles Walker mustered out with his company on August 4, 1865. After the Civil War, Miles Walker settled in Sandusky, Ohio. He married Nancy Williams on May 30, 1867. Miles Walker was included in the 1890 Veterans’ Schedules for Surviving Soldiers, Sailors and Widows who were residing in Erie County, Ohio in 1890. Notes taken by the census enumerator said that Miles Walker suffered from rheumatism.

On September 14, 1908, Miles Walker died in Sandusky, Ohio. He was buried at Oakland Cemetery next to his wife Nancy, who had passed away in 1896. Though Miles Walker was merely counted as a hash mark in the slave schedules of Tennessee in 1860, the name of Miles Walker was clearly inscribed on his tombstone, and has stood for more than one hundred years.