Incorporation: two plats, three petitions, one town — June 8, 1877

WEST TROY PLATTED DECEMBER 14, 1854 · WALKERTON PLATTED JUNE 20, 1856 · INCORPORATED JUNE 8, 1877

Walkerton began as two towns on adjoining ground and became one government on the third attempt. Timothy Edward Howard's county history of 1907, read first-hand for this section, lays out the plats: West Troy was platted December 14, 1854, by Elias D. Jones, on the southeast part of the northeast quarter of Section 23, Township 35 North, Range 1 West; Walkerton was platted June 20, 1856, by William C. Hannah, on the southwest quarter of Section 24. Additions accreted to both — Burk's addition to West Troy on April 27, 1860; Jacob Rupel's additions of December 11, 1868, July 2, 1875, and January 23, 1884; Dixon W. Place's first addition of September 3, 1887 — and the modern town is the union of the two plats and their additions under a single government. Incorporation took three petitions to the county commissioners. The first, filed December 2, 1873, with an election ordered December 22, 1873, was refused for irregularities. The second, filed March 8, 1876, with an election ordered April 3, 1876, went no further. The third, filed March 5, 1877, with an election ordered April 2, 1877, succeeded: the report was returned and the commissioners' order entered on June 8, 1877, incorporating the town. The town's name carries a conflict the record does not reconcile, printed whole. Howard (1907) says Walkerton was named for John Walker, a promoter of the Indianapolis, Peru & Chicago Railroad, and the town's Wikipedia entry repeats that form. The town's own site, and Walter LaFeber and Foster & Rotter's history of LaFeber — the Walkerton-born historian — say the name honors James H. Walker, a LaPorte banker who in 1856 built the Cincinnati, Peru & Chicago Railroad through the town. Both Walkers were railroad men of the same building years; the sources differ on the Christian name and on the road, and this section prints both without choosing. Howard's own volume carries a second, internal conflict of the same kind: his town section gives Walkerton 1,037 people in the census of 1900, while his Lincoln Township section counts the township at 1,599 that year including Walkerton at 885. Both figures print, as Howard printed them, unharmonized. By 1907 the incorporated town already owned and operated its own water works and its own electric light plant — the municipal-utility course the utilities entry carries forward.

Sources:

1. Timothy Edward Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (Lewis Publishing Co., 1907), Part 53 (Walkerton), pp. 316–318, read in the archive.org scan transcription at ldsgenealogy.com: the plats, the additions, the three petitions, and the incorporation order of June 8, 1877; the naming for John Walker; the 1900 population of 1,037; the town's water works and electric light plant.
2. Howard (1907), Part 49 (Lincoln Township), p. 291: the township at 1,599 in 1900, Walkerton at 885 — the internal conflict, printed whole.
3. Town of Walkerton (walkerton.in), town history material: the naming for James H. Walker of LaPorte.
4. Foster & Rotter, on Walter LaFeber (Southern Methodist University Press PDF): James H. Walker and the Cincinnati, Peru & Chicago Railroad, 1856.
5. Wikipedia, "Walkerton, Indiana": the naming for John Walker, repeating Howard — printed as the conflict's second carrier, not as a settler.