Draft:Reuben E. Walker

Reuben Eugene Walker (February 15, 1851 – January 1, 1922) was a justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court from 1901 to 1921. Born in Lowell, Massachusetts to Abial and Mary Walker, the family moved to Warner, New Hampshire, where Walker's boyhood was spent.

Member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1895. He graduated from Colby Academy in 1871, from Brown University in 1875.

"On March 22, Governor Jordan of New Hampshire nominated Reuben E. Walker, Brown '75, for associate justice of the supreme court of that state. By the action of the New Hampshire legislature at its recent session, the judicial system of the state was changed from what is known as the single to the dual system. Two courts, a supreme court and a superior court, were established in the place of one. The supreme court, to which Mr. Walker has been appointed, has final jurisdiction of all questions of law and general superintendence of inferior tribunals, while the superior court is concerned with the trial of facts. Questions of law arising in the superior court are carried to the supreme court onexceptions. The new system necessitates ten judges, three more than the single system required. In putting it into operation, Governor Jordan nominated all the members of the former court to positions in the new court. Judge Walker as one of the three new members of the bench. Judge Walker has resided in Concord ever since his graduation from Brown. He read law for three years and was admitted to the New Hampshire bar in 1878. In 1891 he formed a partnership for the practice of law with Frank S. Streeter, Esq. Since the establishment of this partnership, two others have been admitted to the firm, which now does business under the name of Streeter, Walker and Hollis. Judge Walker was a member of the New Hampshire legislature in 1895 and served as chairman of the committee on the revision of the statutes. He was joint author of Ray and Walker's New Hampshire Citations, published in 1890.

While in college, Judge Walker was a close student. Outside of his studies he was especially interested in college journalism. He was on the editorial staff of the Brunonian for two years, serving as editor-in-chief in his senior year."

In 1921, Walker was president of the New Hampshire Bar Association.

"Over seventy years is a long stretch and when, as with Reuben E. Walker, it is devoted to an honorable and able service of mankind, well may the fortunate mortal at the end "soothed and sustained by an unfaltering trust........lie down to pleasant dreams." So it was that on New Year's Day, 1922, Reuben E. Walker died in the same calm spirit in which he lived and worked.

From the beginning, his career was distinguished in the true sense by modesty, unselfishness and ability in a life's work in which the opportunities and temptations to aid oneself at another's expense as well as the demands for intensive and discerning labor are most marked.

He studied law in the office of Sargent and Chase and was admitted to the Bar in 1878. It is a noteworthy fact that both masters and their pupil later became judges of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire. On leaving their office, he practised in partnership with Robert Ray for five years, the two collaborating in the composition of “Ray and Walker's Citations"; from the end of this period, he practised alone, holding the position of Solicitor of Merrimack County from 1889 to 1891, when he entered the firm of Streeter, Walker and Hollis. In 1901, he went on the Bench of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire where the soundness and clearness of his opinions were marked by court and lawyers alike.

Although devoting most of his time to his work, he yet found an opportunity to be representative to the Legislature in 1895, a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1902 and a trustee of the Concord Library from 1901 until his death, together with other similar positions of dignity and trust.

Modest and retiring throughout, the honors which he received were thrust upon him and yet his achievements never failed to warrant them. He did not go unnoticed. In 1916, Dartmouth College gave him his L. L. D., and in 1921 his own College conferred on him a like honor. In religion, he was a Unitarian, and in politics, a Republican, but in these as in all things, he was broad without shallowness, catholic yet discriminating, tolerant without being loose."

In the summer of 1875, Walker married Mary E. Browne by whom he had one child, Bertha W. Walker. Mary died in 1907, after which Bertha cared for her father.