WALTER. CALLENDER is a worthy "Son of the Rock," having been born in Stirling, January 9, 1834, son of James and Christina (Reid) Callender, of that town. Mr. Callender emigrated to America when a comparatively young man and entered the house of Hogg, Brown & Taylor, in Boston, where he remained until the outbreak of the Civil War. He patriotically determined to serve his adopted country and volunteered for service in the Thirteenth Massachusetts Volunteers. Considerable active service fell to his share and he rose to the rank of captain, commanding a company of colored troops in the defence of Washington. After the war he was attached for a time to the Quartermaster-General ‘s Department in Washington.

After the conclusion of the war, Mr. Callender entered into partnership with the late John McAuslan and the late John E. Troup, and had founded the firm of Callender, McAuslan & Troup, in October, 1866, now one of the leading department stores of Providence, Rhode Island, and widely known as the "Boston Store". The firm, of which Mr. Callender is the head, is also engaged in the importing and wholesale dry goods business, employing fifteen travelling salesmen, covering all the New England States.

Shortly before engaging in business, April 3, 1866, Mr. Callender married Miss Ann Oswald Crow, daughter of William Crow, of Roxburn, Scotland, and Sarah Reevie. (The surname of Crow, it may be parenthetically observed, is an abridgement of Auchencraw, the name of a once prominent family in Berwickshire, which died out in the main line.) Three sons were born of this marriage: namely. Walter Reid Callender, Robert Callender (now deceased) and John A. Callender. All the sons were graduated from Yale University, in 1894, 1898 and 1902, respectively. Mr. Callender ‘s first wife died in 1882, and two years later he married Jane Stobie Reid, daughter of the Rev. John Reid, of Old Kilpatrick, Dumbartonshire, the traditional birthplace of St. Patrick.

Mr. Callender ‘s business energies cover a wide field, as the following will show. He is President of the Callender, McAuslan & Troup Co.; Treasurer of the Boston Store Land Co., Vice-President of the Puritan Life Insurance Co., and a director in the following concerns: National Exchange Bank, Crown Worsted Mills, Rhode Island Insurance Co., Snowden Worsted Mill, and the Syndicate Trading Company, of 2 Walker Street, New York City. This latter concern is known in the dry goods trade as the "Scotch Syndicate."

With all his business affiliations, Captain Callender does not neglect the social and intellectual side of life, and accordingly we find him enrolled among the members of the Providence Chamber of Commerce, Commercial Club, Economic Club, Rhode Island Historical Society, Rhode Island School of Design, Squantum Association, Providence Athenaeum, and, of course, as becomes a patriotic Scot, of the St. Andrew’s Society of the State of New York.