C. C. B. WALKER HOUSE, PALMYRA, NEW YORK

I told you and had pictures of one of the historic houses in our village that was torn down.  Well let me tell you about one of the historic houses that has been saved and is still being restored today.  It is the C. C. B. Walker house.  This was the Walker's Summer Home. It is located on small road called, of course, Walker Road in the town of Palmyra.

C. C. B. Walker stood for Charles Christopher Brainerd Walker who lived from June 27, 1824 to January 26, 1888.  He was a U.S. Representative from the State of New York.  He was born in Drewsville, New Hampshire.  He completed preparatory schools. He moved to Corning, New York in  1848.  He was Postmaster from 1856-1860, as well as a contractor engaging in the hardware and lumber business.  During the Civil War he served as brigade quartermaster with the rank of captain in the New York State Militia.  He served as delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Charleston in 1860 and Baltimore in 1872.

Walker was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-fourth Congress March 4, 1875 to March 3, 1877.

After his term in Congress he resumed his former business activities.  Her served as a member of the Board of Control of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station from June 10, 1885 until his passing.  He was also chairiman of the New York State Democratic Committee  from 1887 to his passing.  Walker died in Corning, New York on January 26, 1888.  He is buried in the Palmyra, New York cemetery.

C. C. B. Walker was not the person that had the house built.  The house was built in 1815 by Mr. George Brown.  Brown's widow sold the house to Edward Seldon Townsend.  Mr. Walker bought the house from the Townsend's for his wife.  As I said, it was the Walker's Summer House.

It is rumored that President Grant attended an elaborate dinner that the Walker's had in this home. Also, the basement has a tombstone engraved "Joel Foster, February 2, 1829".  Foster is one of the original founders of Palmyra.

Having been passed down through the family, the house was left vacant from the 1940's until the late 1960's or early 1970's.  As a child, we always said the house was haunted.  In the late 1960's or early 1970's I and a friend of mine went through the house as we were thinking of purchasing it.  When I was there, it had another house behind it, which I assumed was the servants quarters and a large barn on the left side away from the house.  It was purchased by someone who took both the house behind it and the barn down.  It was again sold to a family who started to restore it.  Do to a job transfer they had to sell and was purchased by the current owners who are still restoring it today.

There are five stories to this house plus a walk out basement.  I would like to go through this house again and see all the improvements that have been done to it.  A new barn was built on the remnants of the old barn.  In the barn,  the people raise chickens and sell their eggs as Colonel Walkers eggs as you can see in the last picture.

While getting information for this post, I found out that I know the people that own it now. Don't know them well, but know who they are.  I hope when the weather gets better, they will allow me to go through their house and take pictures for here.