John Morgan Walden

John Morgan Walden (February 11, 1831 – January 21, 1914) was an American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He also gained notability as a newspaper editor and journalist, as a State Superintendent of Education in Kansas, as an officer in the Union Army, and as an Official in his Christian denomination.

John Morgan Walden was born in Lebanon, Ohio, the son of Jesse and Matilda (née Morgan) Walden. The family moved to Hamilton County, Ohio in 1832. John was of Virginian ancestry, his great-grandfather Walden having moved from Culpeper County, Virginia to Kentucky in 1770, and his grandfather Benjamin to Ohio in 1802. After the death of his mother in 1833. John went to live with relatives near Cincinnati.

John married Martha Young of Cheviot, Ohio July 3, 1859. They had five children.

Walden attended a local school in Cincinnati until 1844, when he went to work. Becoming a wandering laborer, he found employment as a carpenter. He became interested in the writings of Thomas Paine, whereby Walden became a skeptic. He read Sir Walter Scott and Oliver Goldsmith. His own early romantic stories were published under the pen name "Ned Law" in the Hamilton, Ohio Telegraph from 1849 until 1853.

After attending Farmers' College in College Hill, Ohio in 1849, Walden taught school for a year in Miami County, Ohio. It was there that he was converted by a Methodist Circuit Rider. Returning to Farmers' College, Walden graduated in 1852. He then continued to teach there for two years.

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