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biography from Portrait & Biographical Album of Mahaska Co., Iowa, 1887
JAMES WALLING, Sr., of Oskaloosa, is a mason by trade. He was born in Delaware County, Ohio, March 14, 1812, and is a son of John and Keziah (Brown) Walling, natives of Maryland. The former was a soldier in the War of 1812, and was taken prisoner at the time of Hull's surrender. They had six children, five of whom are living: Eliza, wife of James McCune; Mercy, wife of Moses McIlvaine; Delasmutt; Martha, wife of Walstein Sprague; they are all residents of Delaware County, Ohio; James is the subject of this sketch. Mr. Walling was a Democrat in politics, and an admirer of Andrew Jackson. Both he and his wife died in Delaware County, Ohio. The subject of this sketch was brought up on a farm, and educated in the log cabin school-houses of his boyhood days. His father being one of the pioneer settlers in the heavily timbered land of that State and county, it required laborious work to properly clear the ground and prepare it for cultivation, in all of which James assisted until his father's farm was opened up, and afterward cleared a farm for himself, working very often nearly all night. Mr. Walling was married in Delaware County, Feb. 25, 1838, to Miss Mary McGee, a native of Harrison County, Ohio, born Nov. 10, 1813, and a daughter of Hugh and Sarah McGee. When twenty-one years of age our subject took up the trade of mason, which he followed consecutively for fifty years. In the fall of 1856, with his family, he emigrated to Oskaloosa, where he has since resided. Mr. Walling cast his first presidential vote for Andrew Jackson. At the breaking out of the Rebellion he left the party with which he had been so long affiliated and is to-day an advocate of the prinbiples of the Greenback party. Mr. and Mrs. Walling became the parents of five children, four living: Martha, wife of Edmund Fitzgerald, of Oskaloosa; they have nine children, Henry is a mason by trade, and resides in Oskaloosa; he married Mary Simons, and they have four children; James is a mason in Oskaloosa; he married Grace Mettler, and they have five children; and Mary J., of this city. Lavina died at the age of twenty-eight years; she was the wife of William; L. Zane, and the mother of two children, who now live with our subject. Mrs. Walling died March 30, 1881. Mr. Walling has been an industrious, hard-working citizen during all the years he has resided in this city, and many of the best structures of the city are specimens of his skill as a mason.
Portrait & Biographical Album of Mahaska Co., Iowa, 1887
Mahaska County, Iowa Genealogy