Hiram Walker (4 July 1816 – 12 January 1899) was an American grocer and distiller, and the eponym of the famous distillery in Windsor, Ontario, Canada directly across from Detroit, Michigan. Walker founded the distillery in 1858 in what was then Walkerville, Ontario. Walker was born July 4, 1816 in East Douglas, Massachusetts, and moved to Detroit in the mid-1830s. He purchased land across the river, just east of what was Windsor, Ontario, and established a distillery on the banks of the Detroit River. Walker began selling his whiskey as Hiram Walker's Club Whiskey. It became very popular and American distillers became angry, and forced the US Government to pass a law requiring that all foreign whiskeys state their country of origin on the label. This move backfired; Hiram Walker's Canadian Club Whiskey became more popular.
He established and maintained the company town that sprang up around his distillery. He exercised planning and control over every facet of the town, from public works to religious services to police and fire. He once opened a church for his workers and then quickly closed it when the preacher decided to bite the hand that fed him by preaching about the "evils of alcohol".
Mr. Walker was also a cattle breeder and was party to a famous contracts case known as "The Pregnant-Cow Case." (Sherwood v. Walker, 33 N.W. 919 (Mich. 1887).) He agreed with Theodore Sherwood, a banker, to sell him a cow of distinguished ancestry known as Rose 2d of Aberlone. The price was $80, both parties believing Rose to be sterile. When Walker discovered that she was pregnant and worth between $750 and $1,000, he refused to deliver her. Sherwood sued and prevailed in the trial court, but lost on appeal. This case illustrates the contract law rules of rescission of contract by mutual mistake. Because both parties believed they were contracting for a sterile cow, there was a mutual mistake of fact, and therefore ground for rescission.
Hiram Walker died in Detroit, Michigan, January 12, 1899. He is buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit.
The Hiram Walker & Sons Distillery remained in the Walker Family until 1926 when it was sold to Harry C. Hatch. Canadian Club Whisky is produced to this day at the distillery site Mr. Walker founded. The company has gone through several versions of ownership and is now owned by French firm Pernod Ricard as a result of that company's acquisition of Allied Domecq. The direct descendents are of the Franklin MacFie Walker Family.