Hugh Albert Walker

Biography

Hugh Albert Walker's family account begins his journey from Nova Scotia, a Canadian province on the Atlantic coast, with two dates: he left on December 2, 1890 and reached Boston, Massachusetts, by rail on December 4. With the family's accepted birth date of July 28, 1875, he was fifteen. His birthplace was Avondale, Nova Scotia.

The same account follows him through the electrical-supply trade. He worked for Drake, Payson and Whittier and subsequently managed the fixture department at Crooker Electric. These were distinct steps before he established Walker Electric in 1919. He had experience handling electrical merchandise and running a department before becoming president and treasurer of his own company.

An abstract of the 1930 census places Hugh and Cynthia Alice Hixon Walker in an owned home valued at $6,000. The household had a radio, one of the possessions specifically recorded by that census. Hugh's work was described as management of an electrical business. The family included children from his marriages; his first wife, Alice Mitchell Marshall, had died in 1910.

His activities extended into trade and local organizations. Family research identifies him as a past president of the Rhode Island Electric League and records associations with Kiwanis, the Chamber of Commerce, the Masons, Cumberland Grange and Clifford Presbyterian Church.

Walker Electric continued into another generation. Hugh's son Edmund appears in later directories as a salesman and then a vice-president. The business Hugh founded after years in other firms remained a workplace for his family.

The family account reports that Hugh died at eighty-one. Later marker evidence dates his death to January 11, 1957. That marker gives his birth year as 1876, while the family chronology uses 1875; the birth-year discrepancy remains unresolved.

The burial listing places Hugh Albert Walker at Pocasset Cemetery, Cranston, Providence County, Rhode Island, United States.