The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Walker, Amasa

WALKER, Amasa, an American political economist, born in Woodstock, Conn., May 4, 1799, died at North Brookfield, Mass., Oct. 29, 1875. He was a merchant in Boston from 1825 to 1840, and was prominent as an abolitionist. In 1843 and 1849 he went to Europe as a delegate to the international peace conventions. In 1848 he was a representative in the legislature, in 1849 a state senator, in 1851-'2 secretary of state, in 1853 a member of the state constitutional convention, and in 1862-'3 a member of congress. From 1842 to 1849 he was professor of political economy at Oberlin college, and from 1861 to 1875 lecturer at Amherst college. He published “Nature and Uses of Money and Mixed Currency” (Boston, 1857); “Science of Wealth, a Manual of Political Economy” (1866; 7th ed., 1874); and with William B. Calhoun and Charles L. Flint “Transactions of the Agricultural Societies of Massachusetts” (7 vols., 1848-'54). — His son Francis Amasa, born July 2, 1840, studied law, served in the civil war, was made brevet brigadier general in 1865, became chief of the bureau of statistics at Washington in 1869, superintendent of the census of 1870, Indian commissioner in 1871, and in 1872 professor of political economy and history in the Sheffield scientific school of Yale college. Besides the reports of the census (3 vols. 4to), he has published “The Indian Question” (Boston, 1873), and “The Wages Question” (New York, 1876), and compiled the “Statistical Atlas of the United States” (folio, 1874).