Walker Web Family Cards - Person Sheet
Name Capt. Thomas B. Walker4
Birth 1689
Death 1723
Religion Anglican - Church Of England
Father John Walker (-~1709)
Mother Rachael Croshaw
Misc. Notes
Owned and lived at Rye Field (now Locust Grove) on the Mattaponi River. Captain in the local militia as noted in a letter from his father in 1707. There is also a record of 5000 acres he acquired in what would become Caroline County. In 1714 he was a member of the quorum of King and Queen County and the sheriff in 1718.
The Walker Bible published in 1589 is thought of as belonging to this Thomas and the earliest record in it references the marriage of Thomas Walker to Miss Susannah Peachy in 1709. It reads
September the 24th: 1709 I went to Saint Clamones Church
Thomas Walker.
There is some question about the location of Thomas and Susannah’s marriage. Elizabeth Hawes Ryland states in her 1949 A Tentative History of the Walker Family that this refers to St. Clement’s Danes Church in London as “like many young men of his day in Virginia, he was sent to England for his education, and while there married.” The will of his wife’s sister, Mary Peachy, seems to confirm this, since apparently she had at one time resided in London and had property there. However, other accounts suggest that they were married at St. Clements Church in St. Stephens Parish in King & Queen County within five miles of Locust Grove. It was known as Apple Tree Church and existed until after the American Revolution when it was abandoned and later destroyed by fire. However, Mrs. Ryland’s account is correct in that Apple Tree Church is believed to have been built between 1724-29, after Thomas and Susannah married.
During Thomas’ lifetime there was a push to expand westward and to find a path across the mountains. When Alexander Spotswood became governor of Virginia in 1710 he was interested in exploring and developing Virginia. He established a settlement in Germanna with German immigrants, above the falls of the Rappahannock River on the boundry between present day Culpeper and Orange Counties and pursuaded the General Assembly to pay for a road to the settlement. Much is known about Governor Spotswood’s expeditions from the diary of John Fontaine, a young Irish Huguenot, who traveled on several of these trips. The 1715 and 1716 expeditions traveled through King & Queen County. On the 1715 trip Fontaine noted the following on the return to Williamsburg from Germanna:
“At eight o’clock in the morning we got on horseback and took leave of Mr. Beverly and his sons…and so we put on our journey till we came to Mr. Thomas Walker’s house on the Mattapony River. Here we set up that night and were well entertained…etc.”.
Governor Spotswood celebrated the 1716 expedition as that of the “Knights of the Golden Horseshoe” because on that trip the Governor and his party crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains into the Shenandoah Valley for the first time. At Germanna they had had to shoe their horses because they would leave the soft soil of the tidewater area for rocky soil as they approached the mountains.
Spouses
1 Susanah Peachey
Burial Nov 3, 17365
Marriage Sep 24, 1709, St. Clement’s Church
Children John B. (1711-)
Mary Peachy (1710-1745)
Thomas (1715-1794)
Last Modified Aug 27, 2018 Created Sep 25, 2018 using Reunion for Macintosh