Huntingdon County Information Page

Alexandria borough

Killed At Antietam

Did you know? A family record in Jordan's 1913 history of the Juniata Valley says that Robert Walker, a son of William and Nancy Walker of Huntingdon County, enlisted in a Pennsylvania regiment during the Civil War and was killed at the battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862.

His father William came to Pennsylvania from county Donegal, Ireland, as a young man and settled in Huntingdon County. He followed the carpenter's trade, and later owned a line of boats on the old Pennsylvania canal. He and his wife Nancy, born Dorris and also a native of Donegal, spent their lives in the county, both members of the Presbyterian church.

Robert's brothers William and George were tinners, and they and their brother Thomas all died at Alexandria. His sister Mary Elizabeth married David S. Henderson, who had moved to Alexandria at twenty-one and learned the shoemaker's trade there from William Shaw.

A carpenter from Donegal who came to own canal boats here lost a son at Antietam.

Checked and confirmed. CONFIRMED 2026-10-30 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

  1. John W. Jordan, ed., History of the Juniata Valley and Its People, vol. 3 (1913)

Checked 2026-10-30 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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