Edward Walker, Jr., commonly called Ned or Neddie,
was born on a late summer Monday during George Washington's
second term as president, on 7 September 1795. He was
probably born in Sullivan County, Tennessee, either
on Horse Creek not far from Jared's Branch of the South
Fork of the Holston River or on Reedy Creek, which is
on the riverfront of what is now downtown Kingsport.
Evidence is scarce, however, as to his parents' exact
whereabouts during these times, and alternately, but
less likely, he may have been born in southwest Virginia
somewhere in or around Russell County.
At the time Ned was born, Tennessee was not yet a state,
although it became one less than a year later on 1 June
1796. When his father first settled the area, Virginia
had given up most of its claims, and the area was considered
part of North Carolina, at least by North Carolina;
the State of Franklin was created by a group of settlers
in Tennessee, but Congress never recognized it. By the
time Ned was born, the State of Franklin had collapsed,
and Congress had renamed the area to be the Territory
South of the Ohio River, a designation to prepare Tennessee
for statehood.
His father, Edward
B. Walker, had been born in North Carolina in 1756;
Edward Sr. served several three-month stints as a private
during the Revolutionary War, starting in the spring
of 1777 and probably fighting mostly in spring through
the early 1780s. Sometime later in the 1780s, he moved
to Tennessee, and around 1 May 1790, he married Jane
Horn at a church on Horse Creek in Sullivan County,
possibly the Double Springs Baptist Church. Family origins
prior to Edward B. Walker are completely unknown, although
DNA results suggest a possibility that the original
Walkers may have lived in the north of England near
the Scottish border in the distant past.
Ned's mother, Jane Horn, was born around 1772. Suspicions,
more than evidence, suggest that her birth may have
been in southwest Virginia, and Tennessee itself is
a possibility, although less likely. She was a daughter
of Frederick Horn, who appears to have lived around
Jonesborough, in southwestern Virginia, and in Hawkins
County but remains mostly a mystery. Family origins
for the Horns are completely unknown. Horn generally
is considered an English name, although, of course,
without knowing the immigrant, the origin of the family
cannot be known.
Ned was the third of what would be twelve children;
he may have had a middle name as did some of his siblings,
but no evidence has been found to show that he did.
Although his father's middle initial was "B.",
there is no particular evidence to suggest that Ned
had the same middle name. Unlike today, children named
for their parents often had different middle names.
Little is known of Ned's early childhood. He probably
was not educated, or at least not educated very well
as he was unable to sign his name in later life; his
older siblings likewise could not write. Quite simply,
when the older Walkers were of common school age, there
were no schools whatsoever in Tennessee and few if any
tutors anywhere in the area. Many of his younger siblings
were educated, which probably reflects the growing availability
of education in the new state.
Haley's Birth and Early Years
Mahala Tussey was born 29 December 1793 in either Botetourt
County, Virginia, or more likely in what became Sullivan
County, Tennessee. She grew up on Jared's Branch of
the Holston River in Sullivan County, and she and Ned
probably knew each other practically from birth. Ned's
oldest brother Joseph married Mahala's sister Mary;
the sisters were daughters of Jacob and Jane (Shuff)
Tussey.
Her father, Jacob Tussey was probably born about 1753
in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, in an area now part
of Lancaster County. Now the heart of Amish country,
even then the area was mostly settled by German pioneers.
Although uncertainty does still exist, Jacob most likely
was descended through a line to Olof Thorrson, a Swedish
immigrant to New Sweden in Delaware in 1641, but Jacob's
grandfather moved to Pennsylvania sometime in the early
1700s. Quite possibly, Jacob spoke German instead of
Swedish or English because of his family's long history
in a German-speaking area; he may also have been bilingual
or even trilingual. Jacob served in the Revolution but
apparently deserted from a Pennsylvania regiment and
later joined a Maryland regiment.
The origins of Mahala's mother, the former Jane Shuff,
are not currently known. She was born in the 1760s,
but beyond that, very little has been proven. The limited
evidence available suggests, be it only a guess, that
she may have been born overseas and emigrated to Washington
County, Maryland, as a child. There is a known Shuff
family in that area at the time that was probably German,
but Jane cannot be tied to it definitively. Jacob Tussey
married Jane Shuff probably in Washington County, Maryland,
about 1789 and moved to Botetourt County, Virginia,
about 1790 and then into Sullivan County, Tennessee,
about 1794. Not all of the children of the couple are
known.
The exact timing of the marriage is unknown, but Ned
and Haley probably married in Sullivan County, Tennessee,
about 1816 or 1817. By 1813, Ned's father had settled
on the middle ridge of Bays Mountain just over the Hawkins
County line with Sullivan County. Ned and Haley may
have first settled there, just a few miles from her
parents as well. A family legend has it that Ned's father
chose the location so that he could see Indians coming
from all sides. One deed places the location on the
road from Jonesborough to Armstrong's Ford, with a ford
of the same name being in modern-day Knoxville; the
actual location was probably on or near Blair's Gap
Road.
Almost all of the Walkers and some of the Tusseys,
at least for a while, would eventually migrate to Claiborne
County, Tennessee, including parts that are now
in Hancock
County. Family members settled within about five
miles from each other in an area starting on the south
just a bit south of the present location of New Salem
Church, following Little Sycamore Road toward Mulberry
Gap to Ned's home and perhaps a little further.
Some lived right on Mulberry Gap and Little Sycamore
Roads, while others lived a bit north, generally around
Hoop Creek as well as probably around the current intersection
of Highway 63 and Rebel Hollow Road.
Unfortunately for researchers, a large number of records
have been destroyed over the years, and there were also
several methods for acquiring and selling land in the
early years; very few early records relating to Walker
land acquisitions have been found, even during time
periods when they are known to have lived there. The
first provable record is a deed in 1818 when Ned's oldest
brother, Joseph, who married Haley's sister Mary, bought
land adjoining land he already owned on Little Sycamore
Creek; no deed for the original land has been found
until it was sold after Joseph's death in 1851. Joseph
was clearly on Little Sycamore, just about 5 miles from
where Ned and Haley would settle, no later than 1818,
and all of the Walkers may have already moved together
when Joseph did.
Evidence given to the current owners of their still-standing
house suggests that Walkers owned the Ned Walker
house for decades before 1818, but the story has not
yet been confirmed. The house may already have been
standing when they purchased the property, or there
may have been related Walkers on the property before
the few documents of the era suggest.
One of the Edwards did not sell the land he owned on
Bays Mountain until 1827, long after the 1818 date he
is thought to have settled on Mulberry Creek, making
1827 probably the last likely date that the couple moved
to Mulberry. However, that sale does not particularly
suggest that they waited that long to move. Evidence
suggests that at least one of Ned's siblings as well
as many of the Tusseys remained in that area of Sullivan
and Hawkins Counties, and Ned could have rented out
or loaned the land to them after he moved to Mulberry
Creek. More tellingly, the 1827 sale appears to correspond
to a visit that Ned made back to Sullivan County when
his father-in-law, Jacob Tussey, died there, and Ned
conducted other business. Quite possibly, Ned had long
before left the land but decided to officially sell
it perhaps the only time he was in the area since he
had left it.
At this point in time, one can only surmise why they
chose to move where they did. The Mulberry Creek area
today is a beautiful but very isolated area, suggesting
that they wanted to get away from a growing civilization.
But a closer look at the area in history suggests a
very different picture. The Mulberry Gap area was settled
early, before 1803, and was a thriving community by
the time the Walkers settled there. One of those very
early settlers was John Jones who married Mary Fitzpatrick
and settled nearby before 1802; Mary Fitzpatrick was
a sister to a man who married another Tussey sister,
and the families of Jones, Fitzpatrick, Walker, and
Crawford seem to have intermingled from an early time
in Sullivan County. By the time the Walkers settled
the area, they already knew people there and probably
were not moving into a community they had not seen.
More importantly, though, the current distance from
any major road today belies the reality in the early
1800s. Although the exact route is not known precisely,
a main road from the east to Cumberland Gap, just about
8 miles away from their home, seems to have followed,
more or less, the present-day locations of Highway 25E
and Little Sycamore Road, bearing left on Highway 63.
Far from being isolated, the area at the time was on
a heavily-traveled thoroughfare filled with pioneers
moving to Kentucky and other points west, likely opening
many avenues for trade; the Walkers lived no more than
a mile from this road.
Like most of the families in the region, the Walkers
were farmers, cultivating the rocky hillsides of East
Tennessee. Stories told to the current owners indicate
that Ned was also a leatherworker, and they found evidence
of leatherworking in the house itself. No other evidence
of this occupation has been found, and the story may
apply to his son William.
The limited land records available suggest that Ned's
original land holdings were somewhat small but that
the farm reached at least 337 acres by his death. Research
given to the current owners suggests much larger Walker
holdings at some point but cannot be confirmed through
record sources.
One son often told his daughter of being taken out
into the fields and put on a pallet while his parents
worked. Although the products of the farm were quite
varied, Ned seemed to specialize in pigs. In 1850, for
instance, the farm schedule indicates that Ned had 100
improved acres along with 160 unimproved acres for a
total farm worth $1,000 along with farming implements
and machinery worth $100. He also had 5 horses, 6 cows
for milking, 4 oxen, 10 other cattle, 14 sheep, and
100 pigs, with all the livestock being worth $400. The
produce of the farm for the year ending 1 June 1850
included 20 bushels of wheat, 1500 bushels of "Indian
corn", 600 bushels of oats, 50 pounds of tobacco,
37 pounds of wool, $10 worth of orchard products, 200
pounds of butter, 250 pounds of flax, 100 pounds of
maple syrup, 325 pounds of beeswax and honey, $100 of
"homemade manufactures", and $10? [hard to
read on microfilm; originals are at Duke University]
of animals slaughtered.
What he did with the pigs is unknown, whether he sold
meat to neighbors or travelers or had some method for
moving them to market. The current owners of his house
report that newspapers from Kentucky dated to the 1820s
were used to plug leaks in the walls of the house, suggesting
some contact there, where he had relatives and may have
done business. Although Ned could not write, many people
who could not write at the time were able to read.
The First Set of Children
Other family histories have long held that Martha
Gillus Walker was a daughter of this couple, and,
given that she was probably born around 1816, she would
have been the oldest. She
was not Ned's natural daughter, although she likely
was raised by the couple. Court records from the dispute
over Ned's estate strongly infer that Martha was not
his daughter, and P.G. Fulkerson, who knew the family
and wrote about them, did not mention Martha, and she
also does not appear in Isaac Walker's copy of the family
record. She could have been Haley's daughter from an
unknown first marriage or the daughter of one of Ned
or Haley's siblings who died young or just an orphan
they adopted. Although she definitely is not Ned's daughter,
she is included here as she apparently was considered
part of the family.
All of Ned and Haley's natural children were probably
born in the house at Mulberry Creek, although there
is some question as noted above. Henry,
the oldest, was born 21 April 1818, and Jane,
the oldest daughter, on 22 August 1820. Then came Isaac
on 27 October 1822, Mary
on 16 December 1824, Jacob
Shuff Walker on 31 December 1826, Anna
on 18 April 1830, Sabra
on 6 August 1832, John
Gilmore on 29 November 1834, Johnathan
on 3 December 1837, and finally Sarah,
born 29 July 1840.
The current owners of Ned's house have been given information
that there was yet another child, a daughter, who died
by choking on a brad from Ned's leatherworking and is
buried with Ned and Haley; however, there are only two
graves there and no known break in the birth order.
This story might apply to a child and, more particularly,
William.
Lizzie (Walker) Click, Jacob's oldest daughter, related
in a letter to Annie Walker Burns in 1929, long after
the events, that Jane (Shuff) Tussey lived with Ned
and Haley when Jacob was little, sometime in the early
1830s; she appears to have been with her own son Jonathan
Tussey in 1830. According to the story, the family came
across the ocean when she was little. Because money
supposedly could not be taken out of the country of
origin, Jane sewed a coin, called by Lizzie a gold guinea,
into a feather bed. Because the coin was so small, finding
it in America took some time. The story cannot, of course,
be proven, and it is not known whether Jane (Shuff)
Tussey was born outside the United States.
Lizzie also related a story that Jane had a "film"
over her eyes; Jacob would go out to the creek to collect
mussels. The mussel shells would be ground into powder
and blown into her eyes, temporarily solving the problem.
Curiously, powdered pearls from oysters apparently have
been shown to relieve symptoms of conjunctivitis, and
perhaps this story relates to that problem and remedy.
There continue to be mussel shells in the creek in front
of the house to this day.
Ned was about five feet nine inches tall, with blue
eyes, a dark complexion, and dark hair. No physical
description has been found for Haley, although a picture
of her sister Mary has been found. However, family tradition
holds that both sisters spoke with heavy accents, sometimes
called Swedish and sometimes French. As mentioned earlier,
most likely, the accent may have been German; despite
their Swedish ancestry, their family had been in the
United States for five generations. Lizzie Click also
said that Jane (Shuff) Tussey could count in "Dutch",
although she probably meant German. The word "Dutch"
then as now ("Pennsylvania Dutch", for instance)
often meant German.
Details of the couple's life with their children can
only be surmised. The children, at least some of them,
attended school, although some of the girls could not
write, and evidence suggests that at least one boy learned
in adulthood to write. School at that time was limited
to a very few months of the year, and children from
an early age also worked on the farm.
Religion
A
separate article documents the religion of the earliest
known Walkers of our family.
Haley's Death
Haley died on a Saturday after Christmas, on 28 December
1844. Ned's second wife gave 28 December 1842 as her
death date, with 1844 coming from son Isaac's copy of
his
father's Bible record. The 1844 date is used here
because, presumably, Isaac was in a better position
to know, and Sarah (Crumley) Walker's statement of it
when she applied
for a pension did not necessarily require accuracy.
Lizzie Click indicated that Haley died of scurvy which
started in her foot. Scurvy is a vitamin C deficiency
that was often thought to be caused by sea water; of
course, sailors actually got scurvy from a lack a fruit,
something usually readily available in the Mulberry
area, so scurvy seems quite unlikely. She was buried
across the creek on a hill overlooking their home in
a grave marked with a limestone marker with no inscription.
Only recently has marked stone been erected.
Apparently after Haley died or perhaps a little earlier,
Ned bought a slave who seems to have had a daughter.
The two only appear on the slave schedules of the Census,
and no deeds have been found involving their purchase.
The slave schedule represents only one day in every
ten years, and since a granddaughter remembered seeing
Ned at a slave sale, he may have bought and sold others
at various times. However, only the two are known.
The older woman, whose name is not known, was in the
household in 1850 and was born about 1820; she was blind,
which indicates all the further that she was purchased
specifically to take care of the household and the children
after Haley's death or perhaps during her last illness.
The second was so young as to almost definitely have
been her daughter and was born between 1846 and 1848;
assuming that she is the same little girl sold at Ned's
death, her name was Tilda. It seems likely that Tilda
was born during the time that Ned owned her mother,
although she may not have been.
At least three possibilities arise: the mother may
have been married to a man at a nearby farm, Ned may
have arranged for her to get pregnant, or, quite possibly,
Tilda could be a Walker. The mother was no longer in
the household in 1860, and whether she died or was sold
is unknown; efforts to track Tilda have not been successful,
although she may have been the Matilda Woodson who married
an Andrew Cloud after the Civil War.
The Second Family
Ned would eventually marry again, to a woman named
Sarah Crumley, called Sallie. Sallie was a daughter
of William Crumley who lived further up the Mulberry
Road. She was born 28 September 1813 probably in the
Mulberry area, and she appears to have not to have married
until she married Ned on 28 November 1848. They were
married in Ned's house by John Crumley, a justice of
the peace who was most likely her brother. It was John
Crumley who recorded the marriage in the family Bible
that was later lost to fire. Apparently, the legal record
of their marriage was lost even before the courthouse
fires.
By the time Ned and Sallie married, some of the oldest
children were already married and out of the house,
while the youngest was just 8, and several of Haley's
children may have been close to Sallie. Ned and Sallie
would have four children of their own, all boys: William,
born in October 1850, Edward
F. , called Edd, born in February 1852, James
Harvey, born 12 July 1855, and Milton
Green, born 23 May 1858.
Ned's Death and the Civil War
Military stone for Edward
and Mahala (Tussey) Walker erected 7/8/2006; obtained
and erected through the efforts of Tim Walker,
who also supplied the photo. The stone is not
crooked; Little Ridge, where they are buried,
is quite steep. Within a month of the stone being
placed, Tim and I discovered better dates for
Mahala.
The two younger boys in particular likely remembered
little of their father, though. Ned died 9 April 1860
at his home on Mulberry Creek in what was by that time
Hancock County. He had liver disease and had been sick
for nine days when he died at the age of 64. He was
buried with on the hill across the creek from his house.
Although only field stones were used, a military marker
was finally erected in 2006 - approximate one month
before exact dates were found for Mahala.
By the time Ned died, all of the older children were
married, and he had already staked some or all of them.
Typically, one would expect Ned to have left a will
which specifically excluded the older children, since
they already had been given shares, and providing for
the second family and his much younger widow. Ned left
no will, leading to a series of events that would keep
the Walkers going to court for more than 20years and
even involving the Tennessee Supreme Court. The court
battle, though, would have to wait until after the Civil
War.
The 1860 Census, enumerated as of June 1 but actually
enumerated in August on the Mulberry Road, shows Sarah
living with just her own four children and Martha Crumley,
a 22-year-old servant who was likely a sister or a niece.
She still was listed as owning Tilda, the remaining
family slave, although she would lose Tilda in April
1861.
Despite having the four young boys in school, she was
probably not without help around the farm. Bill at 9
and Edd at 7 were capable of helping, and she had brothers
and brothers-in-law in the area. For that matter, Ned
and Haley's children were generally not far away; only
Jane had long ago left the state and was living in Izard
County, Arkansas, at the time of the Census. Martha,
Jacob, Sarah, Johnathan, and John Gilmore were all still
living in Hancock County within a few miles; in fact,
Johnathan and John Gilmore were practically next door
or perhaps in the same house. The others were only a
few more miles away, closer to the Clinch River, with
Isaac on Straight Creek, Henry, Mary, and Sabra on Bear
Creek just over the hill from Isaac, and Anna not far
away in Grainger County; Anna would soon move to Bear
Creek. All of the older children would soon leave Hancock
County, almost always for Bear Creek and Walker's Ford,
with most moving at some time during the war.
Walker sympathies during the war are hard to measure
and were not monolithic; Sallie's own sympathies are
unknown. In a war that pitted brother against brother,
that scenario was probably no more literally true than
in East Tennessee. When Tennessee, the last of the southern
states to secede, held a referendum on secession, secession
won by a two-to-one margin in both West Tennessee and
Middle Tennessee but lost by a two-to-one margin
in East Tennessee. Knoxville, the nearest large town,
has been called the only city that both the Union and
Confederate forces considered to be hostile.
The reasons that most East Tennesseans opposed secession
are not particularly difficult to understand. A great
number of people who lived in Appalachia were descendants
of people who moved there partially to be left alone,
and quite a few, while not necessarily believing in
full equality, were uncomfortable with the idea of human
bondage. Slavery did occur in Hancock and Claiborne
counties despite some histories that claim otherwise,
and both Ned and his brother Joseph owned slaves, but
slave owners were few in number.
Key to the equation, though, was the fact that the
Grand Division of East Tennessee is quite mountainous,
and most farmers, like Ned, farmed relatively small
farms on the sides of rocky mountains and ridges. Large-scale
cotton farming, with the attendant large plantations
and slave populations, was not possible in East Tennessee,
while the geography of Middle and West Tennessee allowed
such plantations more typical of the deep South. Most
of the people who owned slaves in East Tennessee owned
no more than one or two, with very few households owning
more, and most households owning none. Simply put, the
economy of East Tennessee did not depend upon slavery.
Henry, the oldest son, had become a circuit-riding
Methodist minister and was staunchly pro-Union; just
two weeks after the contentious Republican convention
that nominated Abraham Lincoln, Henry named a son for
him. That son would be kidnapped during the war by a
band of Confederates who supposedly intended to kill
him, but one of them knew the family and returned him
safely to his parents. Shadrach Ball, whom oldest daughter
Jane had married, was also a Methodist minister and
would soon be chased out of Arkansas for preaching "the
Abolitionist's Gospel," and the couple would lose
two sons and a son-in-law, all fighting for the Union,
during the war. In addition, most of the first cousins
of Ned and Haley's children who did fight appear to
have fought for the Union, with several dying for the
Union, mostly in prison camps.
On the other hand, the only son of Ned and Haley known
to have fought actually did so for the Confederacy,
serving barefoot at Missionary Ridge. Johnathan contracted
typhoid and walked home from a hospital near Atlanta,
deserting according to some accounts which are certainly
debatable. In any case, he served more than a year and
half along with two sons of a first cousin, both of
whom died before Jonathan left the army; another first
cousin also seems to have served the Confederacy.
Regardless of who supported what side, life was miserable
for the residents of Mulberry Gap as well as the Bear
Creek/Straight Creek/Walker's Ford area. Military planners
early in the war considered nearby Cumberland Gap crucial
as it had once been a major transportation route; only
later in the war did they realize that time and technology
had greatly reduced the importance of the Gap, but not
before it changed hands multiple times. In addition,
raiding parties, both official and unofficial, regularly
traveled in the Mulberry Gap area and at Walker's Ford.
Local citizens, then, were harassed no matter who they
supported, and many had to hide food and valuables.
Mary (Tussey) Walker, the widow of Ned's brother Joseph,
hid food in burial crypts, while Ned's own house had
a secret room on the second floor, accessible only through
the attic, where food and valuables could be hidden.
Famine, violence, and outright anarchy reigned, with
schools and churches often closed, and local governments
only intermittently functional.
Tennessee seceded officially on 8 June 1861. Even with
local sentiments favoring the Union, both the state
and local governments became Confederate, and there
were certainly a considerable number of Confederate
supporters in the area. In fact, behind Ned's property
on Mulberry Creek is a hollow that became known as Rebel
Hollow due to the large number of Confederate supporters
there, some of whom occupied the Hancock County courthouse
at one point. Even though Tennessee joined the Confederacy,
Sallie had already lost her slave in the estate sale.
East Tennessee was the last of the Grand Divisions
to return to Union control. The Union first invaded
parts of Tennessee in early 1862. Nashville fell on
25 February 1862, causing the Confederate state government
to flee to Memphis; they certainly were not going to
flee to a hostile population in East Tennessee. Memphis
fell just a few months later, on 6 June 1862, at which
point the Confederate government of the state of Tennessee
ceased to exist permanently; in fact, Andrew Johnson,
who would later become president after Lincoln's assassination,
was sent by Lincoln to Nashville even before Memphis
fell to set up a military Union government. West Tennessee
would never again be occupied by Confederate forces,
although southern parts of Middle Tennessee were reoccupied
from the fall of 1862 until July 1863 and again briefly
in November and December of 1864.
Union forces did not invade East Tennessee until August
1863, with Knoxville, the nearest large town to the
Walkers, captured 1 September 1863; Chattanooga fell
later in the month. Grant then drove the Tennessee Confederate
forces completely out of Tennessee two months later
in November, while Burnside drove off a Confederate
force determined to recapture Knoxville. While Burnside
was successful in saving Knoxville, that Confederate
force retreated into upper East Tennessee, probably
causing even more problems for the Walkers and their
neighbors. That force finally moved into Virginia in
the spring of 1864, and Tennessee was finally free of
all Confederate forces.
Sallie and all of Ned's children by both marriages
survived the war, and even Johnathan would finally recover
from his illness and long trek and live to old age.
But they had lost many cousins and other relatives including
one of Ned's grandchildren, a son of Jane.
The Court Battle - A Family Feud?
Although several events regarding Ned's estate occurred
during the war, the real battle began after the war
was over. That he did not leave a will is rather curious,
although, of course, many people fail to take that step.
In 1852, Ned had all of his land formally surveyed and
deeded even though portions had already been in the
past. His action suggests that he wanted to make sure
that he had clear title to his entire property. Having
already lived there for decades, the decision to do
so at that time would seem odd except for the fact that,
a few months earlier, his brother Joseph had died unexpectedly
when a limb from a tree he was cutting fell on him.
In other words, the timing would suggest that Ned was
thinking ahead to his own death and the need to have
clear title as early as 1852.
But he still left no will. Given that he was only sick
for 9 days, he may not have had the chance to write
a will, and he may also have not realized that the illness
would be fatal. Regardless of the reasons, the lack
of a will combined with the Civil War would play havoc
on his family.
Inheritance laws of the era were considerably different
from today; a wife did not automatically inherit real
property, which in those days included both real estate
and slaves. Instead, widows had a dower right under
the law, meaning that she was entitled to a 25% interest
in the land and retained the right to live there for
life - provided that she lived there continuously. When
she died or moved elsewhere, her interest in the land
would disappear, and her right to live on the property
forfeited. Sallie also, by virtue of having had at least
two children with Ned, was entitled to a child's share
of the real property. Since Ned left 13 living children,
Sallie herself was entitled to only 1/14th of the estate
in addition to her dower rights.
Sallie's feelings about her share are not known, but
subsequent events suggest that either she was unhappy
about it and manipulated her family or that her family
manipulated her. Still, neither she nor her family were
in control of everything that happened next.
Apparently, Henry, the oldest son from the first marriage,
decided he wanted the property. As was typical in that
area and era, he worked quickly to buy out the shares
of his other siblings, and courts generally did not
get involved deeply in such cases. Relevant deeds from
Hancock County are lost due to courthouse fires, but
the court records suggest that Henry was able to come
to quick accommodation with his older siblings, thus
owning 9 of the 14 shares apparently in both the property
and the slave.
The four boys from the second marriage were still minors
when Ned died, and Calvin Ramsey, Sallie's brother-in-law,
had been appointed guardian for their interests in the
estate. He seems to have refused to sell out to Henry
because the county court ordered that both Tilda and
the real estate be sold on the steps of the courthouse
in Sneedville in April 1861.
The auction was held, and R. C. Woodson, a local merchant,
purchased Tilda for $800. A note was carried back for
two years upon which Woodson was supposed to pay the
money. There is no record as to whether a Walker attempted
to purchase her; she grew up in and may have been born
in the Ned Walker household but was forced to leave
on the eve of the Civil War, in the very month in which
the Confederates fired on Fort Sumpter. She would finally
be free as early as the fall of 1863 or as late as the
spring of 1864.
Henry Walker did show up for the auction and placed
the winning bid of $1,900 for the real estate; as with
the slave sale, a note appears to have been carried
back for 2 years allowing him to finance the purchase,
but, since he already owned 9/14ths of the property,
he presumably financed about a third and finally had
the property he wanted securely within the Walker family.
Or so it would seem. Soon thereafter, Calvin Ramsey
protested the land sale, claiming that it sold for well
less than it was worth at auction. Quite clearly from
the record, Ramsey himself wanted the land and even
offered the court $2,100, although his lawyer later
convinced him to withdraw the bid; as guardian for the
minor children, his bid was a conflict of interest.
In what would seem to be a surprising development,
the county court agreed and ordered a second auction
for April 1862. Ramsey had not alleged, at least according
the existing record, any fraud whatsoever in the earlier
public auction; he merely alleged that the property
should have sold for more. That the county court agreed
with him may well have had something to do with the
war. Tennessee had seceded just after the first auction,
and a Confederate government was now in control. Henry
Walker was a well-known Union supporter. The Ramseys
and the Colemans, who were soon to enter the picture,
appear to have been Confederate supporters.
So, in April 1862, the property went up for auction
again on the courthouse steps in Sneedville. Henry Walker
himself was so angry about the turn of events that he
did not show up, although his brother Johnathan did
and perhaps other siblings were there, although records
do not indicate whether they bid for the property. Calvin
K. Coleman, who was born and grew up next door to Ned,
made the winning bid this time, at $2,105, again with
a note carried back for two years.
The Hancock County government was not fully functional
during parts of the Civil War, and the next entries
in the court records appear in 1865, three years after
the second auction and after Union control of the local
government was regained. During the war, William Neil
had been the Clerk and Master responsible for collecting
the notes used to purchase both the slave and the property.
Woodson, who purchased the slave, appears to never have
paid; not surprisingly, he apparently tried to avoid
payment for something that obviously he lost. The court
ruled, though, that a note was a note and that he owed
the money. The Walkers alleged that Woodson was hiding
assets, and whether they ever collected the money is
unclear from the record.
During the war, Coleman had cut an unusual side deal
with Calvin Ramsey, the guardian of the four youngest
sons. Instead of paying the money he owed for the minor
children's portion of the estate to the Clerk and Master,
he paid Ramsey directly, possibly for Sallie (Crumley)
Walker's portion as well. He should have paid the clerk,
but Ramsey accepted the purchase. However, Coleman did
not actually pay anything; he took another note from
Ramsey for the amount, secured by Ned's land, and apparently
never paid it, either. In other words, instead of following
proper procedure, Coleman handed the younger children
an IOU to replace his IOU to the court.
Henry Walker did not dispute this side deal, as he
had no economic interest in it; instead, he was owed
the other 9/14ths portion, including his own share and
the shares of his older siblings which he had purchased
earlier. Regardless of the side deal, Coleman was responsible
for paying that portion to the Clerk and Master over
a period of two years.
Coleman had gone to Neil during the war to pay off
the rest of the notes well before they were due,
as a matter of fact. He attempted to pay in Confederate
currency, which Neil refused. Neil instead insisted
that Coleman use Confederate Treasury notes, which Coleman
did obtain and turned over to Neil. Neil, as it turns
out, was quite ill and soon died, having not completed
his duties; he did not get court approval to complete
the sale, he did not turn over any money to the Walkers,
and he did not deliver the deed to Coleman. Since there
is an explicit statement in the record that Neil was
an honest man and beyond suspicion, quite likely some
people thought otherwise.
So, after the war, Henry Walker sued Calvin Coleman
trying to get the land back for a new sale, or, failing
that, to get the notes paid in money of value. Post-war
Tennessee law stated that all transactions that had
occurred using Confederate Treasury notes were invalid;
the law did, however, explicitly allow such transactions
if a contract were involved, apparently to avoid widespread
disruption to major business contracts. Technically,
a deed probably would have been considered a contract,
but Coleman never received a deed; this distinction,
though, did not end up being important to the final
decision.
At first glance, one might get the impression that
Henry was trying to take advantage of a technicality,
but the record seems quite clear that court approval,
which Neil never sought due to his illness or the war
or both, was required to complete the transaction. Such
approval would have allowed Henry, among other things,
to protest the form of payment. And because the court
had not approved the transaction, Neil never gave Henry
even the now worthless Treasury notes. So Henry had
never received a penny in any currency for his 9/14ths
of the estate.
Many of the depositions in the court records revolve
around the issue of whether the auctioneer specified
that U.S. currency and gold were required or whether
he specified the "currency of the land", which
Coleman argued would have been Confederate currency
at the time. A number of people testified that the auctioneer
required U.S. currency; a number of others testified
to "currency of the land". Not surprisingly,
those who testified to U.S. currency tended to be related
to the Walkers, and those who testified to currency
of the land tended to be related to Coleman or
to Sallie (Crumley) Walker. Despite all the paperwork
on this particular issue, this issue, as with the delivery
of the deed, proved not to be relevant to the final
outcome.
The suit went through various stages, with Henry winning
at every step, so one may assume that Coleman was the
one who took the matter all the way to the Tennessee
Supreme Court. Henry apparently had not disputed the
legitimacy of the second auction, and the Supreme Court
ruled that the sale was final and that Coleman owned
the land. However, they also ruled the payment of the
notes invalid and that Coleman was to pay the full amount
owed to Henry. The Court brought up a different issue
that, if Henry's lawyers had raised it, the documentation
is not in the Hancock County file. The same law that
recognized transactions using Confederate Treasury notes
if a contract were involved also required that the transaction
be completely above suspicion; because Coleman's payment
raised a serious appearance of fraud, the transaction
was held to be invalid.
Fraud charges were not brought against Coleman, at
least as part of this case, and the Supreme Court certainly
did not convict him of fraud or even definitively rule
that fraud had taken place; instead, they ruled that
Coleman's actions raised enough suspicion to conclude
that fraud might have been involved and thus invalidated
the transaction under the law. In fact, his actions
were probably legal at the time but were highly suspect.
What Coleman was thinking and what he knew at the time,
and in fact, the exact timing of his interaction with
Neil, are not altogether clear. But the wartime developments
in Tennessee would seem to have had to play a role in
what he tried to do with Neil. Since he attempted to
pay off the two-year note early, he certainly went to
Neil before April 1864. Although the local government
in Hancock County was still Confederate apparently,
the Confederacy in Tennessee was in its last throes,
and Coleman had to have known that; in fact, Knoxville
may well have already been taken when he approached
Neil. Even if the entire invasion of East Tennessee
had not yet started at the time, certainly the rest
of the state had fallen, and rumors of the impending
Union invasion of East Tennessee were rampant in the
region well before the actual invasion which ended up
putting East Tennessee under Union control.
In short, although Confederate Treasury notes were
not Coleman's idea, Confederate currency was. Coleman
tried to pay off the notes early and even paid a full
two years worth of interest at his own, not Neil's,
suggestion, so the early payoff was not an attempt to
reduce interest charges. One would be very hard-pressed
to believe that Coleman took this step without fearing
that his Confederate money would soon be worthless.
Coleman's transaction probably was perfectly legal at
the exact point in time he made it, and, in his mind,
he probably felt he had done nothing wrong and was out
a large sum of money. On the other hand, the money soon
would have become worthless anyway, and the Tennessee
Supreme Court ruled against him.
Henry would still have trouble collecting the money,
though. At one point, he got a court order which required
the sale of Coleman's share of his own late father's
land. Whether that sale went through or exactly what
happened has not yet been determined, and whether Henry
ever collected is not entirely certain. The main court
case regarding the estate was terminated in 1872, not
particularly because all matters were resolved but because
Henry himself died in early 1872. There was at least
one more suit against the estate by the second set of
children, and rumors of additional suits, none of which
have been examined yet.
Because of the courthouse fire in Hancock County, the
exact chain of title cannot be traced, and whether Coleman
ever got title is not known. Between 1878 and 1880,
Sallie moved into Tazewell with her youngest sons, Jim
and Green, so that both of them could go to college;
according to family stories on Jim's side, she took
in washing to support the two through school, and both
had a great deal of catching up to do in school, possibly
because of the nonfunctioning schools during the war.
Technically, when she left the homestead, she would
have lost her widow's dower, but apparently no one pushed
the issue; also, while unproven, her oldest son Bill
and his family may have lived in the house for a time.
The first deed available in Hancock County for the
property is from 1881, when Elisha and Bettie Bishop
owned the land subject to Sallie's dower rights. How
they obtained it cannot be traced, but Elisha owned
quite a bit of land in the area and may have bought
out Coleman to keep him from losing his own land or
otherwise acquired it as a result of some of the legal
machinations going on over the estate. The Bishops sold
their interest, still subject to dower despite Sallie's
having moved, to Hugh Parkey and Patterson Breeding.
A few months later, on 16 January 1882, Sallie sold
her dower rights to Parkey and Breeding for $400, and
the land thus left the Walker family. Also, starting
in 1879, she drew a pension based upon Ned's military
service starting at $8 per month and increasing to $12
before her death.
Just two weeks before Sally sold her dower rights,
her son Green had gotten married; Jim was still unmarried.
The three, plus Green's wife, all moved sometime in
1882 to Grainger County, Tennessee, where Jim married
in 1885. Sallie lived alternatively with the two families
for the rest of her life. Very shortly after Jim married,
they all moved to Jacksboro in Campbell County, where
Jim and Green, according to tradition in Green's family,
started the Walker Brothers School. No record of the
school has been found, but many such enterprises were
created in Tennessee in that era with few records remaining.
Court records of the era may reflect it, though.
Apparently, the school did not operate for a long period
of time, because all the families left Grainger County
sometime between 1889 and 1893 and settled in Newport,
Cocke County, Tennessee, where Green would teach and
run the school system while Jim owned a hotel and livery
stable and also taught at times; Green was also elected
to the state assembly from Cocke County around the time
his mother died. Sallie died presumably in Newport of
currently unknown causes, on 11 January 1898; she is
buried in Union Cemetery there along with Jim and Green
and their families.
Sarah (Crumley) Walker's
stone in Union Cemetery, Newport, Tennessee; photos
taken 8/30/2005 by Phillip A. Walker.
Even in death, Sallie leaves us with a minor mystery:
Jim and Green did not purchase the plot in which she
was buried for more than eight months after her death.
Where she was first buried is unknown. However, Jim
and Green were both heavily involved with the local
Methodist church in Newport, and that church was one
of the ones involved in the creation of Union Cemetery,
which had its first burial in July 1898; they probably
wanted to have a permanent place for both them and their
mother in the new cemetery. In fact, Green and Jim and
their wives are all buried there despite the fact that
all had moved long before their deaths, Jim to Athens
and Green to Clinton.