Jonathan Walker: The Man With the Branded Hand
Interviewed by John Hoh
Q: What prompted you to write about Jonathan Walker?
A: I was in Florida on vacation in 1991 when I ran across a reference to a sailor from Harwich, Massachusetts, who had been branded by a federal marshal in a Florida court. I lived in Harwich on Cape Cod at the time, and couldn't wait to get home. The library there had nothing on Walker. I began looking around and found Walker's own small record, "Trial and Imprisonment of etc." That he was unknown, and that such an atrocity (Frederick Douglass's word) should have occurred intrigued me. I am a writer, and I couldn't resist getting the full story.
Q: What did you learn in your research?
A: Walker lived through most of the 19th century, so my research covered that amazing period between Washington and Lincoln, and beyond. I discovered in American history so many fascinating and unfamiliar (to me) facts and anecdotes that I determined to put Walker in the full context of his time. In a way, you might say, I was showing off what I had learned, but reviewers have consistently remarked on how "full" this information makes the biography.
Q: What intrigued you most about Jonathan Walker?
A: I suppose it must be the dual-track life that he led, all the while maintaining a highly moral stance. In one life, he was a sailor, a man in a very tough trade, often among drunken hoboes whose habits were not his; and on the other, he was a gentle and sensitive husband and father. I won't claim to have his high moral standards, but I think I can almost see a bit of me in him. He had nine children; I've had eight. He loved to write; you couldn't stop me from it. And in the end, family, for both of us, counts most in life.
Q: Did Jonathan Walker transport other runaways?
A: I don't think he did. The book reports on others who believe that he did; for example, the Pensacola Gazette's John McKinley. But it is my belief that a man who wrote as much as Walker wrote would not have been silent about other efforts. He lived more than a decade beyond the Emancipation Proclamation, so he would have had no fear to record his work then, even if he had been discretely silent earlier.
Q: Why do you feel Jonathan Walker is unknown to most people?
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