Benjamin H. Walker ’44

Benjamin Harrison Walker died in Newport, R.I., Jan. 16, 1995. Ben prepared at St. Mark's School. After graduation, he served in the Air Force, and entered Harvard Law School, graduating in 1949, after being placed on inactive duty.

He was recalled to active duty during the Korean War but, aside from that, spent his entire career in N.Y.C. in financial law and related administrative positions, becoming successively Secretary of the Chase Manhattan Bank and Secretary of the Equitable. Ben was the grandson of President Benjamin Harrison and, accordingly, the descendant of a family prominent in American history from earliest colonial times. Through college and throughout his life he was dedicated to classical studies and increasing his extensive library of Latin writings. He was also an active mason and served as Master of Holland Lodge. He married Elizabeth Sillcocks and they had two sons — James, a captain in the Merchant Marine, and Benjamin, a physician. A great pleasure was a home and a sailboat on Cuttyhunk Island. When it appeared that the cancer could not be restrained much longer, he managed a final summer on Cuttyhunk with Betty and some day sailing about Buzzards Bay. Ben was a fine gentleman, crisp but gentle, studious but never disdainful, generous and especially humorous — right to the end. His last words to a classmate just before his death: "It's been a good life, a very good life."