Mahalah Walker James (b. circa 1826 - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-51521
Maryland State Colonization Society Emigrant to Liberia from Caroline
County, 1835
Biography:
Mahalah Walker was the freeborn daughter of Luke and Ann Walker, manumitted slaves from Caroline County. Mahalah had eight brothers and sisters; the two eldest, Thomas and Laura Ann, had had their freedom purchased by their father. Her remaining siblings—George, William, Mary Adeline, Joseph, Elizabeth and Allen—were all born free.1
On December 24 1835, the Walker family, including Mahalah's fourteen-month old nephew, John Smith, departed for Liberia, where Luke hoped to set up a saw mill.2 The Walkers sailed from Baltimore on the brig Fortune, arriving at Cape Palmas, Liberia on February 4, 1836.3 By the time that the colony's first census was conducted in 1837, Luke was working as a carpenter, and all of the Walkers had survived acclimation to the new land.4 However, the family did not remain in Liberia for long. Luke became disillusioned by the frequent material shortages and lack of opportunities in the new colony. In June 1837, Luke and his family returned to the United States on the Niobe. Colonial officials welcomed his departure, believing that his attitude demoralized the colonists as well as dissuaded potential settlers from coming to Liberia.5
By December 1837, the family probably lived in Baltimore where Luke
owned a grocery store in the Fell's Point area.6 By 1850, Mahalah
was married and had taken the last name of James. That year's census record
Mahalah and several other Walkers living in New York City in the home of
Lewis Walker, who was probably a relative. Mahalah's older brothers, Thomas,
William, George, were working as porters while Elizabeth, her mother and
sister Mahala, had no occupation listed. It appears that Mahala had a one-year
son named George. A twenty-five year old waiter named Edward James was
also a member of the household and may have been Mahalah's husband.7
By
the next federal census in 1860, the family had dispersed with Thomas remaining
in New York City while Allen had moved to Massachusetts, George to Philadelphia.8,
9, 10 The whereabouts of Mahalah, her child, and the other Walkers
is unclear.
2. Hall, Richard L. On Afric’s Shore: A History of Maryland in Liberia, 1834-1857. (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 2003), 156.
3. Ibid, 453.
5. Hall, 453.
6. "Luke Walker." Maryland Colonization Journal, December 1837, Vol. 1, No. 13, p. 54.
7. U.S. CENSUS BUREAU (Census Record, MD) for Mahala James, 1850, New York County, 1st District, 8th Ward New York City, Page 235a, Lines 37-42. Page 235b, Line 1-3.
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