The following feature appeared in a Walker, Iowa, newspaper: "Pioneer Walkerite, now in Colorado, celebrates seventy-sixth birthday, St. Patrick's Day. " A few days ago a number of A. L. Hutchins' old friends here received a photo of him taken at Misla, Colorado, on March 17, 1912, his seventy-sixth birthday. Mr. Hutchins has the distinction of having his birthday fall on St. Patrick's Day. The receipt of the picture caused many old friends to look backward to early days in this little city. To us as well as some other Jackson county peple, who live here, the life of Mr. Hutchins is like an open book. "He was born in New York State March 17, 1836 and came to Iowa with his parents July 1, 1856, locating in Jackson county. After spending six years there he went to Wright county and from there to Jones county, and five years later, returned to Jackson county . There he operated a blacksmith and wagon shop until 1876, when he came to Walker. Mr. Hutchins was always a lover of stock and we can remember as if it were only yesterday when he left LaMotte overland with a string of houses. To our youthful mind the blindfolding of some of the horses that refused to leave the old home was a new impression. Mr. Hutchins arrived arrived in Walker just two years after the railroad was built, and inside of five years a number of Jackson county families had located here. He operated for several years what is now the Nietert and Pendergast farms as a stock ranch and his corral was located at the to of the hill opposite Mr. Nieterts new farm residence, for housing the stock at night was a western attraction for us young Americans. Mr. and Mrs. Hutchins, as well as their children Miss Lettie and Philo L., took an active part in the affairs of the town until they left for their new home in Colorado in March, 1902." "Both Mr. Hutchins and his son P. L. were prominent and active members of the A.F. & A.M. and I.O.O.F. lodges and a workingjteam in either lodge was not complete without one or both of them. "We, like many other young Americans, often thought Mr. Hutchins a little too officious in his efforts to rectify some of our boyhood pranks, but since arriving at maturity we look at things from a different angle and we want to say publicly that we can see where it was to our interest not his that he was looking. "It seems but yesterday when the McQueens, Hutchins, Griffins, B.C. Fahr, M. Kleitsch, A.W. Manchester and others would get out on the streets for a foot race or a game of horse shoes." source: "Nicholas Hutchins of Lynn and Groton" by Marvin Clayton Hutchins

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