Born at Ferry Plantation in Princess Anne County, Virginia, Henry Walke combined his duties as a naval officer with watercolor and oil painting of landscape and marine scenes. His work included harbor scenes in Honolulu and sketches of Brazil that he later made into oil paintings.

Henry Walke spent much of his life traveling from place to place beginning with his childhood. At age two, he moved with his family to Ohio; in 1812 to Norfolk, Virginia; and in 1820, when he was age 12, back to Ohio where they built a home at Chillicothe.

His naval career began in 1827 when he, having been enrolled in the Naval School in Norfolk, Virginia, was appointed a midshipman, and then served throughout the 1830s in the Pacific and East Indie...