Jonathan Walker

1845 daguerreotype of Walker's branded hand by photographers Southworth & Hawes.

Jonathan Walker (1799 – May 1, 1878), known as "The Man with the Branded Hand", was an American fishing ship captain and abolitionist who became a national hero in 1844 when he was tried and sentenced as a slave stealer following his attempt to help seven runaway slaves find freedom. He was branded on his hand by the United States Government with the markings "S S", for "Slave Stealer".

Biography

Put on trial in federal court in Pensacola, Walker was convicted, heavily fined, and sentenced to be tied to a pillory, and publicly branded on his right hand with the letters "S S" (for "slave stealer"). But to sympathizers, it meant "Slave Savior". United States Marshal Eben Dorr, who also traded slaves, executed the branding with a hot iron. Walker was then returned to jail, confined eleven months, and released only after Northern abolitionists paid his fine.

Walkeralong with Stephen Symonds Foster and Abby Kelley Foster, Sojourner Truth, Marius Robinson, and Sallie Holleyreorganized the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society in 1853 in Adrian, Michigan. The state society was founded in 1836 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

He lived in Wisconsin in 1855 and 1860

Jonathan Walker died on May 1, 1878, in Lake Harbor near Norton Shores, Michigan. He is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Muskegon.

Legacy

A monument was erected to Captain Walker's memory on August 1, 1878. The monument was funded by philanthropist and abolitionist Photius Fisk, who funded several monuments dedicated to abolitionists. The monument became a national shrine for those working towards racial justice.

Walker was the subject of John Greenleaf Whittier's poem "The Branded Hand". Whittier learned about Walker by reading a book about him called Trial and Imprisonment of Jonathan Walker (1850). The poem praised Walker's actions.

A plaque commemorating Walker was erected on the lawn next to the Harwich, Massachusetts, Historical Society. Another Rev. John Walker (1786–1845) was a Presbyterian minister and abolitionist in Pennsylvania and Ohio who founded Franklin College in Ohio.