Collect Day #26 CATO WALKER
O God, whose foster children inhabit the entire world we remember today, Cato Walker, his wife and his son, James Bryant; here we see in these your children the open heart of humanity that honors diversity without discrimination and enriches the lives of many generations. May we never forget that we, too, hold this gift and in Cato’s spirit pass it on as he did; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
DAY #26, April 4, 2019
GOFFSTOWN, NH
CATO WALKER (? – 1839)
Cathy Wolff
Cato Walker, once enslaved, lived as a freeman with his wife in Goffstown. He owned land and farmed it; paid taxes and attended church. But little else is known of him, except that around 1822, he and his wife took in a foster son who went on to become a missionary in Africa.
That foster son, James Bryant, was White and would die as a missionary in Africa in 1850. According to a memoir by a Rev. Thomas Savage:
“Mr. Bryant’s early history is peculiar. His parents, too poor to support all the members of their large family, committed James to the care of a pious colored man named Cato who resided in Goffstown NH. Cato and his wife took the lonely lad to their humble dwelling and to their hearts. Mrs Cato in giving her reminiscences of young Bryant said, ‘Oh, he was like a minister. If any of the boys used bad language in his presence or conducted improperly he was sure to reprove them.’ After his conversion, he was assisted by some friends to prepare for college. Graduating from Amherst a good scholar and ripe Christian, he went to Andover Theological Seminary.”
Savage speculates that “probably [Bryant’s] love for the black race and a desire to pay the debt of gratitude he owed led him to choose the African field.” He arrived in South Africa in 1846 and, again, according to Savage, quickly learned the language and “composed some beautiful hymns.”
As for Cato Walker and his wife, there’s a broken tombstone for him in Goffstown’s West Lawn Cemetery, dated 1839. And some believe his home still exists on the side of Mount Uncanoonuc. But so far little other information has been discovered.
