r the winter the climate of Cuba. It
was but a few weeks after reaching there that he died at St. Jago de
Cuba. Judge Walker was distinguished for great purity of character as
well as superior legal attainments. His modesty was almost feminine;
yet he was a man of remarkable firmness and decision. By many he was
thought superior intellectually to his more distinguished and prominent
brother. Few men may be truthfully termed superior to R.J. Walker.

In 1826, there came to Natchez, from Maine, a youth who was a cripple.
He was without acquaintances or recommendations, and also without
means. He was in search of a school, and expressed his intention of
making the South his future home. His appearance was boyish in the
extreme, for one who professed to be twenty years of age. At that time
most of the planters in the region of Natchez employed private teachers
in their families, who resided with the family as one of the household.
A lady near Natchez, the widow of Judge Shields, was desirous of
employing a teacher, and tendered the situation to the young Yankee.
Mrs. Shields had grown-up sons, young men of fine attainments, and who
subsequently distinguished themselves as men of sterling worth. They
were soon delighted with the young stranger, who was busily employed in
his new vocation with their younger brothers. I remember to have heard
Mr. Thomas Shields say the young man teaching at his mother's was a
most remarkable man, and narrate some instances of his great powers of
memory, accompanied with facts which came within his own knowledge.
These were so very extraordinary, that notwithstanding the high
character for integrity borne by Shields, there were many who doubted
them.

There lived at no great distance from Mrs. Shields, a planter, Mr.
Thomas Hall. This man was a coarse and illiterate overseer for some
years in the county, but having carefully husbanded his earnings, was
enabled, in company with James C. Wilkins, to commence planting upon an
extensive scale. At the time this young man was teaching at Mrs.
Shields', Hall had accumulated quite a fortune, and was a man of
comparative leisure. His mind was good, and now that he had an
abundance of the world's goods, and was becoming a man of consideration
in the community, he felt, in his intercourse with his educated
neighbors, the want of that cultivation which would make him their
equal. This had made him morbidly sensitive, and whenever an
opportunity presented