Richard Dexter Walker (1828-1910)

Pioneer Brickmaker and Builder

Dexter Walker was not the first brickmaker in Kalamazoo, but he was certainly one of the most successful. Of the half-dozen or so who engaged in that trade, Walker seemed to stand out, and he made a lasting imprint on the growing community.

Richard Dexter Walker (commonly known as “Dexter” or “Deck”) was born 16 February 1828 near the village of Florence in Zone, Upper Canada, now Dawn-Euphemia Township in Lambton County, Ontario, some 40 miles east of Mt. Clemens. He was the fifth son (6th child) of Captain William Dexter Walker, a former schoolteacher from Vermont, and Sarah Fansher “Sally” Walker from Montgomery County, New York.

Dexter Walker was an energetic 21-year-old with barely a cent in his pocket when he arrived in Kalamazoo in 1849, but he soon realized there was a strong market for brick in the growing local community. With only his hands to work with, Walker set up a brickmaking operation and began making soft brick* (also known as insulating fire brick) from the area’s rich deposits of clay.

* “Until the mid-19th century, bricks were produced by handpacking molds sprinkled with sand or water, depending on the desired finish. When combined with small-scale firing, where bricks at the rear of the kiln often received insufficient heat to initiate the sintering process, this process tended to produce bricks that were quite soft.” — Old House Journal

By 1851, Walker had purchased a 40-acre farm on the east side of Cooper Township, some four miles west of Richland. He held the property for a couple of years, then in September 1855, he purchased 39 acres in sections 8 and 9 of Kalamazoo Township along what later became known as Alamo Road, just west of the Grand Rapids plank road (Douglas Avenue).

“He saw an opening, made a venture, hired a little money, opened up a brick yard and started business. It was not a clear success that year, but he went to those men and told them if they would be patient with him he would come out all right and they should not lose a dollar, so they let him work and he came out all right and established his integrity forever in that city, lived and died a successful business man and his children are enjoying the fruits of his venturesome push. Nothing ventured, nothing done.”

— Mrs. Maria Walker Perry (Dexter Walker’s sister), 28 August 1911

On 5 January 1854, Walker married Phoebe Ann Wadsworth (1835-1864), a native of Ganges Township in Allegan County. Later that year, the Walkers welcomed their first daughter, Althea. The marriage would produce six children over the following decade: four girls and two boys.

During the fall of 1856, Walker bought village lot number 30 at the northwest corner of Park and Dutton streets in what was then known as the Kalamazoo Literary Institute addition. To better accommodate his growing family, he built a Greek Revival home on the lot using bricks made with clay he dug from the cellar. According to the tax assessor’s description, a brick house had been completed on the property by the spring of 1858, valued at $900.

“I remember the first time I went there there were three dear little children, Thea, Lida and Willis, and I thought I never saw such a pretty picture, all dressed in white, with pretty shoes and stockings, and hair all combed. She was so careful of her children. She was a very pretty little woman.”

— Maria Walker Perry, 22 August 1912

But the Walkers may not have ever lived in the home, or if they did, it would have been for a short period of time. Their third child, son Willis, was born in November 1858, but legend has it that Phoebe Walker felt the home was “too close to the city” (Gazette) and persuaded her husband to instead settle on property north of the village. The Walkers sold the Park Street home in March 1859 to William P. Blakeman, a local manufacturer. Now known as the R. Dexter Walker House, the brick structure has since housed several families and businesses. It’s been meticulously restored and stands today as one of the oldest homes in Kalamazoo.

When the census taker came around in August 1860, the Walkers had by then established a home on the west side of the Grand Rapids plank road, just north of the Kalamazoo village limits, and had added a fourth child, daughter Jennie, to their ranks. The birth of their second son (fifth child), Fred, followed in 1862. By then, Walker’s brickmaking enterprise employed seven hired hands and was producing a half-million bricks each year.

The years during the Civil War were difficult for the Walkers. Dexter Walker registered for military duty in July 1863 at Kalamazoo, although the extent of his service is unknown. But ill fortune befell the Walkers when shortly after the birth of their sixth child, daughter Nellie, Phoebe Walker passed away in June 1864 at the age of 28. Phoebe’s younger sister, Emily, had been employed by the Walkers as a servant and undoubtedly helped care for the children in her sister’s absence, as did Althea Walker, who was a teenager by then.

Shortly before his wife’s death, Walker purchased additional property for his brickmaking business along the east side of the Grand Rapids plank road, across from his home and next door to the brickyard of James I. Follette. Walker eventually purchased the Follette property (10½ acres) and apparently absorbed Follette’s brickyard into his own brickmaking operation. By the end of the decade, Walker had supplied brick for numerous houses and commercial buildings in and around Kalamazoo, including the Michigan Asylum (c.1860s), the First Methodist Church (c.1865-1869), the Kalamazoo Water Works (c.1868), and others.

In October 1869, Walker married Elizabeth Bell (1847-1904), a young Canadian woman of Scottish descent who had recently arrived in Kalamazoo. Over the following decade, their marriage would produce four children; two boys: Frank and Burton, and two girls: Jessie and Myrtie.

Burton C. Waite

In October 1877, Walker’s daughter, Althea, married Burton C. Waite, a former country schoolteacher turned farmer from Genessee County. Born 5 September 1850 in Pennfield, Monroe County, New York, Waite arrived in Michigan with his parents when he was five years of age and settled near the village of Fenton.

After their marriage, Dexter Walker persuaded his son-in-law to move to Kalamazoo and to learn the brickmaking trade, which he did. For more than thirty years, Waite operated brickyards in Cloverdale, Michigan, and in the valley north of West Main near Hilbert Street in Kalamazoo. In later years, he became a successful realtor and operated a farm on West Michigan Avenue where WMU is today.

“The Old Dexter Walker Homestead”

After four decades in the brickmaking business, Dexter Walker had retired comfortably by 1885. Along with their longtime residence and family “homestead” at 1215 Douglas Avenue (now 1325 Douglas Avenue), Walker maintained a 200-acre farm in Cooper Township (former W.B. Lawrence farm northwest of Cooper Center), along with another 23 acres west of the city in Kalamazoo Township.

Elizabeth Walker died in September 1899 at the age of 52. Dexter Walker died in September 1910 at the age of 82. Both were laid to rest in the family plot at Riverside Cemetery. The Walker home on Douglas Avenue was replaced in the 1920s, but the house on Park Street still stands as a testament to Dexter Walker’s skill and determination.

Written by Keith Howard, Kalamazoo Public Library staff, October 2025