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Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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WALLS, ROBERT JOHN (1850-1933)

WALLS, ROBERT JOHN, harbormaster and shipping master; b. Chatham parish, 20 May 1850, s/o James Walls and Margaret Perley; m. 1875, Isabella Wilson, d/o John Wilson and Jane Henderson; d. Chatham, 3 Nov 1933.

A grandson of Dudley Perley, Robert J. Walls grew up in the Walls home on the Loggieville Road, which was occupied by members of his family for several generations. He was one of a number of brothers who were engaged in the work of the port. His brother Dudley P. Walls was a boat builder, ship pilot, and steamer captain. His brother Asa Walls was a seaman, pilot and pilotage official, and the government wharfinger at Chatham in the 1930s.

Robert J. Walls was a ship pilot for about twenty-five years and had an intimate knowledge of the Miramichi and its shipping. In 1898 he was named harbormaster for Chatham, and in 1901 shipping master. He occupied these offices, as well as that of pilot master, for approximately twenty-five years.

Prior to church union Walls served as a trustee of St John's Presbyterian Church in Chatham. He and his wife, Isabella Wilson, who predeceased him by ten years, were survived by seven children, including Lillian J. Walls, a graduate of the nurses' training program at the Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, and Linda C. Walls, a longtime teacher at Chatham's Wellington Street school.

Sources

[b] Perley Genealogy [m] official records [d] Leader 10 Nov 1933 / Advocate 26 Apr 1898, 19 Jun 1901, 8 Nov 1933; Commercial World 26 May 1955; tombstone; World 28 Oct 1905, 25 Nov 1914


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