Musically gift­ed, by age 18 Walk­er was lead­ing con­gre­ga­tion­al sing­ing at the First Bap­tist Church in Spar­tan­burg. He col­lect­ed and ar­ranged folk tunes, and with his bro­ther-in-law, Ben­ja­min White, par­ti­ci­pated in sing­ing schools and com­pil­ing mel­o­dies from south­ern Ap­pa­la­chia and camp meet­ings. Af­ter mov­ing to Hart­ford, Con­nec­ti­cut, Walk­er pub­lished The South­ern Har­mo­ny and Mu­sic­al Com­pan­ion in 1835, but gave no cre­dit to White, who pub­lished The Sac­red Harp, a com­pet­ing vol­ume, in 1844. Both used the shaped note mu­sic nota­tion sys­tem. Walk­er’s other works in­clude:

• The Chris­tian Har­mo­ny (Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia: E. W. Mill­er, 1873)

• Stulken, p. 130
• Young, p. 848

1. Middlebury
2. New Braun­fels
3. Restoration
4. Sacramento
5. Samanthra
6. Webster
7. Wondrous Love