Straight-line miles between map centers, 2020 Census boundary file
The founding record
Walker township was erected from Porter in April, 1827, and the bounds of the reduced township have since been modified, the principal change being the addition of some territory from West township, extending Porter in that direction, across the Little Juniata, so as to include the Barree Forge property.
J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 2,715,436 of the scanned text
Walker, the village having three stores in 1881, besides the drug-store of Calvin Porter, which was established in 1868. The first 427 drug-store in the village was opened by Dr. Daniel Houtz, more than a quarter of a century ago, and was continued by him a number of years, Among the keepers of public-houses was William Moore, in the low building opposite the present postoffice, about the beginning of the century. In the same house subsequent landlords were Daniel Hewitt, Thomas Lloyd, and Christiane Stemen. Farther up the street, in a building almost the counterpart of the former, was the John Walker mentioned as one of the proprietors of the stage line, and was succeeded by his son John, for many years the keeper of an inn. At later periods John H. Stackpole was the landlord, and Robert Carmon was also for a number of years the keeper of a well-known inn, occupying that building. The latter removed to Missouri, where he was elected sheriff, and was assassinated while in the discharge of his duties. In 1826, John G. Stewart opened an inn, where he now resides, which he continued about a dozen years. In the old Thomas H. Stewart house Robert Lytle had a publichouse about the time of the building of the canal, and subsequently Michael Sissler, John Odell, and Perry Robinson were kJ. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 2,737,317
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9 stories
Stories from Walker
Did you know? William Robb was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, in December 1775, and settled in Woodcock Valley in 1826.
In 1806 he married Mary Livingston of Shaver's Creek, who was born in Lancaster County. They lived on the farm later owned by their son Livingston Robb, and William died there in 1845.
The farm, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Robb Farm in Walker Township, still has the large barn William Robb built in 1839.
Their children went far. John lived at McConnellstown. James moved to Warren County, Illinois. Alexander became a physician and died at Montezuma, Indiana. Thomas lived in Mercer County, Illinois. Their daughter Mary Ellen married Judge John Porter of Monmouth, Illinois, who was raised in Henderson Township.
Checked and confirmed. CONFIRMED 2026-10-03 against the sources listed: every factual sentence was tied to a verbatim passage and a script confirmed each passage is in its source. Where sources disagreed on a number, the number was left out.
The house at Robb Farm in Walker Township.Generic1139stg05
William Robb was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1775 and left for Pennsylvania in 1799, working off the cost of his passage on a farm in the upper Kishacoquillas Valley. In 1806 he married Mary Livingston. Africa's 1883 history records the marriage and says Robb settled in Walker Township, in Woodcock Valley, in 1826. The nomination puts the farm in the Hartslog Valley and fills it in: he rented the Goldsborough farm and lived in a log house there, and in 1833 he bought the 362-acre property from the Goldsborough estate and built a brick house in the 3/5 Georgian form, the bricks dug and fired in the meadow along Crooked Creek. In 1839 he raised the barn, a standard Pennsylvania barn with an open forebay, 75 by 35 feet at its core.
Robb died at the farm in 1845, and on December 6 of that year the home place passed to his son Livingston, then 25, who ran it for over four decades. In 1850 the census credited his farm with 520 bushels of wheat against a township average of 261. About 1864 he built a large rear addition, turned the house to face the improved road, and reshaped the roof into a low hip that lent it a degree of Italianate styling. The farm did well enough in the war years for a Steinway grand piano to be shipped directly to the house. The nomination calls the 200-acre farm of 1880 the most prosperous in the valley, with 59 sheep, 75 apple trees yielding 300 bushels, and 500 pounds of honey.
The next century brought dairying, more than 200 hogs in the 1930s fed on whey from the Sealtest cottage cheese plant in Huntingdon after the blight took the chestnuts, and more than 300 sheep in the 1950s. The tenant house across the road, rebuilt about 1920, has a corner post log core that the nomination says may be the original log house of about 1826.
The nomination, prepared in 2009 and 2010 by William M. Hunter of Heberling Associates in Alexandria, argues significance in agriculture from about 1833 to 1959. Its 179.65-acre boundary is roughly the farm as subdivided in 1845, and it notes that only two of the county's 40 National Register properties were then farms. Eleven buildings survive, all contributing. In the stone springhouse, the date 1933 is carved into the ceiling.
Checked against the record. Checked against the National Register nomination text before publication; 6 claims the nomination did not support were removed or corrected.
Did you know? The state geologist's 1885 report on this county describes a rock city on Warrior Ridge.
Wolf Rocks, near Mr. A. P. Wilson's place, is a spot where large blocks of Oriskany sandstone stand apart from one another, worn and fifty or sixty feet high.
Not far off, on the Penn Township line, a tunnel was driven into the base of Warrior Ridge on Mr. Eisenberg's land to test for iron ore. Because it started where a small stream had worn a gully into the ridge, it failed to strike the ore beds and even missed the sandstone.
Checked and confirmed. CONFIRMED 2026-10-03 against the sources listed: every factual sentence was tied to a verbatim passage and a script confirmed each passage is in its source. Where sources disagreed on a number, the number was left out.
Sources
I. C. White, The Geology of Huntingdon County (Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, Report T3, 1885)
Did you know? The ground where McConnellstown stands is mentioned in very early records as a sleeping place.
The route of travel in 1748 and before ran through what is now Walker Township. The town was later laid out by Alexander McConnell of Huntingdon and named for him. The township itself was named for Jonathan Walker, at one time President Judge of the judicial district that took in Huntingdon County.
The 1876 county history adds that the township held considerable iron ore, all of it controlled by manufacturers whose works were far from Huntingdon County. They got leases on the ore rights, it is said, on the pretext that furnaces would be built nearby. The ore went mainly to Danville and Johnstown.
Checked and confirmed. CONFIRMED 2026-10-03 against the sources listed: every factual sentence was tied to a verbatim passage and a script confirmed each passage is in its source. Where sources disagreed on a number, the number was left out.
Sources
Milton Scott Lytle, History of Huntingdon County (1876)
Did you know? Shafts were once sunk into Warrior Ridge near McConnellstown, and all the diggings together did not produce a ton of lead ore.
A mile northeast of McConnellstown, shafts were sunk and tunnels driven into the lowest hard limestones of Warrior Ridge. Lumps of galena, which is lead ore, were found in the veins of calcite that branch through the rock. But not a ton of lead ore came out of all the diggings.
The state geologist's report of 1885 put it plainly: "It is quite safe to say that neither lead ore nor zinc ore will ever be profitably mined from the Lewistown limestone formation of this county."
Checked and confirmed. CONFIRMED 2026-10-03 against the sources listed: every factual sentence was tied to a verbatim passage and a script confirmed each passage is in its source. Where sources disagreed on a number, the number was left out.
Sources
I. C. White, The Geology of Huntingdon County (Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, Report T3, 1885)
From the county histories, on Walker township. The passage below is printed exactly as it appears in 1913, including the spelling of the day and the errors the scanner made. It has not been rewritten, summarised or added to.
If the location of the squatters in Walker township is correct they were doubtless the first white men who attempted to establish themselves in that section. Patterson has generally been credited with being the first settler, but in view of the above facts it is quite probable that the honor belongs to Frederick Star and his associates. Patterson was one of the most prominent of the early settlers. In he built the first grist-mill and saw-mill east of the Juniata. During the latter years of the French and Indian war his house was used as base of supplies, and at one time, in the fall of 1756, a large quantity of flour was stored there for the use of troops on the frontier. In the expulsion of the trespassers Andrew Lycon resisted arrest, for which his cabin was burned and he was taken to Carlisle and placed in jail.John W. Jordan, ed., History of the Juniata Valley and Its People (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1913) · character 433,518 of the scanned text
From the county histories, on Walker township. The passage below is printed exactly as it appears in 1883, including the spelling of the day and the errors the scanner made. It has not been rewritten, summarised or added to.
Flowing into it and the main river are a number of small mountain streams whose volume becomes very small as the forests are being cleared away. In the northwestern part of the township is the mouth of- Vineyard Creek, whose flow is almost wholly in Walker township. The minor streams afford limited waterpower, which has been utilized to operate small lumber-mills, the forest products of Juniata constituting its principal source of revenue. Large quantities of bark are annually shipped from Huntingdon, which is the market of the township, both for sale and supplies, there being no hamlet or business point within its bounds. Pioneer Settlers., Although possessing so little land to invite settlements, some of the first improvements in the county were made in what is now Juniata. At the mouth of Vineyard Creek lived a Mr. Brady, the father of the Capt. Brady so greatly distinguished as a scout and Indian-fighter. His claims were probably based on possession, since these lands were warranted to other parties, and as the property of William Smith, D.D., were unimportant in the pioneer history of the county, being occupied by tenants for short periods only.J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883) · character 1,956,459 of the scanned text
From the county histories, on Walker township. The passage below is printed exactly as it appears in 1876, including the spelling of the day and the errors the scanner made. It has not been rewritten, summarised or added to.
Walker township extends from Piney ridge, which separates it from Juniata township on the southeast, to Tussey's mountain, dividing it from Blair county on the southwest. Its northern boundary is Porter township, and its southwestern Penn. It was named in honor of the Hon. Jonathan Walker, at one time President Judge of the judicial district to which Huntingdon county belonged. The route of travel in 1748, and previously, was through this township. A tract of land within it, lying on the Juniata river, was warranted in 1755. The site upon which McConnellstown now stands is mentioned in very early records as a "sleeping place." The town was laid out by Alexander McConnell, Esq., of HunHISTORY tingdon, after whom it was named. It is about half a mile from the Huntingdon and Broad Top railroad and contains the only post-office in the township. Additions were laid out Sangree and Joseph McCoy.Milton Scott Lytle, History of Huntingdon County (Lancaster: William H. Roy, 1876) · character 583,893 of the scanned text
