20 December 2009

A Revolutionary War soldier in the Walker family

Several months ago I bought a rare book called The Walker Heritage, which I found referenced on line when looking for info on the Wrights, Granny's mother's family.  John Walker was a teenager when he served in the Revolutionary War, and his family lived in Maryland.  After the war he moved to Lincoln County, Georgia, which is north of Augusta.  He was married three times, as the first two wives died.  He apparently was a successful planter and also a Baptist minister, and he is reputed to have served in the State legislature just after the turn of the 19th century.  The child of the second marriage was Elizabeth Walker (Wright), maternal grandmother of Ava Lucerne Campbell Hill ("Granny").

Anyway, John Walker moved his third (and extended) family from Lincoln Co. to Walton Co., Georgia.  He died soon thereafter, circa 1836 --- his will is very interesting reading ---but the Walker descendants evidently prospered there for generations, and our grandmother had a third cousin among them who was Governor in the 1920's.

What isn't clear yet is whether the Wright family ever lived in Walton County.  The material I'd found before implied that after his wife died, John Wright -- who also served in the Georgia statehouse -- and his children, including Granny's mother Eliza Jane who was about 13 years old, moved to Alabama directly from Lincoln County, in the late 1840's.  The will in the book gave a piece of land to the Wrights, but it doesn't say which county the parcel was in.  At any rate, I suspect Wright probably sold their Georgia holdings when they made the move to the Tuskegee area.



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