By Susan Wheatley
Title: John A. Walters Papers, 1905-1959
Primary Creator: Walters, John A. (1877-1959)
Extent: 3.52 Cubic Feet
Date Acquired: 11/12/1996
Subjects: Kentucky River (Ky.)
Languages: English
John Adams Walters, Sr. was born on January 25, 1877 in Estill County, Kentucky to William Henry and Martha Wilson Walters. Mr. Walters received an eighth grade education in the common schools of Estill County. On January 13, 1898 Adams married Jennie Mable Easter in Estill County. Out of the thirteen children they had ten lived to adulthood with twins Virgil and Myrtle dying in early infancy and Richard Carl Walter drowning in the Kentucky River in 1917 at age nine.
The Walters' family entire life was spent in and around the Kentucky River. Mr. Walters worked in log booms for 50 cents per day and rode log rafts down the Kentucky River. In 1900 the family moved to Ford Kentucky, where Mr. Walters worked at Burt and Brabb Lumber Company. In 1906 Adams was employed as a laborer at U.S. Lock 10 on the Kentucky River at Boonesborough. The next year he became lockmaster at Lock 10. In 1912 Walters was transferred to Lock 7 at High Bridge on the Kentucky as lockmaster. Two years later he was transferred back to Lock 10 and remained there as lockmaster until he retired in October 1941. His son J.A. Walters, Jr., briefly replaced his father, but soon left for service in World War II. John Adams Walters, Sr. was reinstated as lockmaster until his son returned from the war in 1946 to assume the lockmaster position. Walters, Sr., lived in the lockmaster house until 1952. He died on November 21, 1959 and was buried in the Richmond Cemetery.
Repository: Eastern Kentucky University - Special Collections and Archives
Acquisition Source: Major, Nancy & Dorothy Richards
Other Note: In the mid-1980s the family of Mr. Walters donated his original daily log books and journals to the Kentucky Historical Society. In November 1996 Mrs. Dorothy Richards, one of Mr. Walters' daughters, donated his original personal diaries covering the years 1936 to 1958 to the Eastern Kentucky Special Collections and Archives. The archives made several photocopies of the diaries for distribution to the Walters family and sent one copy to the Kentucky Historical Society. This collection also includes photocopies of the original daily log books that are housed at the Kentucky Historical Society.
