CAPTAIN JOSEPH R. WALKER 363
then associate editor of the Sonoma "Democrat," now county clerk at Santa Rosa a more extended account of his reminis- cences of mountaineering and Indian fighting.
His stature was as given by Irving and copied in this sketch, and his form was of massive mold for strength and endur- ance, as well as for activity.
He bore himself always as a man conscious of his own rights and proper dignity ; nor was he unmindful of the rights and condition of others.
He had the mettle of a hero, the simplicity of a child.
Captain Walker ceased from his accustomed toils and fatigues about ten years before his death, and made his home, in peace- ful contentment, with his nephew, James T. Walker, in Ygnacio valley, Contra Costa County, from which he occasionally paid visits to his elder brother, Joel, in Santa Rosa, and to prized friends in other parts of the state. But he was happiest in the quiet of that fond home, and there he died, October 28th, 1876.
His mortal remains repose in Alhambra cemetery in Contra Costa. He lived to the green old age of seventy-six years.
The soil of California has given final rest and sepulture to few more deserving of the respect and remembrance or homage of her citizens, for the measure of good works nobly performed from unselfish motives, and in self-sacrificing, generous spirit.
Among the roll of her honored pioneers, his name will be cherished, and the record of his life and of his beneficent serv- ices during his eventful career, as a worthy representative of the noble band with whom he maintained devoted fellowship, will be inseparably connected with the complete history of this state, to whose growth and greatness he and they so materially contributed in the period of its earliest occupation by Amer- icans, and its subsequent marvelous development toward high- est prosperity.
