xt71jw86hm3m https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt71jw86hm3m/data/mets.xml Johnston, J. Stoddard, (Josiah Stoddard), 1833-1913. 1898  books b92-46-26947783 English J.P. Morton, : Louisville, Ky. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Kentucky Description and travel. First explorations of Kentucky  : Doctor Thomas Walker's journal of an exploration of Kentucky in 1750, being the first record of a white man's visit to the interior of that territory, now first published entire, with notes and biographical sketch; also Colonel Christopher Gist's journal of a tour through Ohio and Kentucky in 1751, with notes and sketch / by J. Stoddard Johnston. text First explorations of Kentucky  : Doctor Thomas Walker's journal of an exploration of Kentucky in 1750, being the first record of a white man's visit to the interior of that territory, now first published entire, with notes and biographical sketch; also Colonel Christopher Gist's journal of a tour through Ohio and Kentucky in 1751, with notes and sketch / by J. Stoddard Johnston. 1898 2002 true xt71jw86hm3m section xt71jw86hm3m 










































































J. STODDARD JOHNSTON

VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE FILSON CLUB

 






FILSON CLUB PUBLICATIONS No. 13.



First Explorations


           Of Kentucky



  DOCTOR THOMAS WALKER'S JOURNAL

Of an Exploration of Kentucky in 1750, being the First Record of a White
   Man's Visit to the Interior of that Territory, now first Published
         Entire, with Notes and Biographical Sketch
                      ALSO
 COLONEL CHRISTOPHER GIST'S JOURNAL



Of a Tour through Ohio and Kentucky in 1751, with Notes
                and Sketch

                   BY
      J. STODDARD JOHNSTON
         VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE FILSON CLUB



       LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
JOHN P. MORTON AND COMPANY
       !'rtntrr to The Filson e1ub
             1898

 




































  CO-PYImHTED BY

The Filson Club

     1898

 

                      PREFACE.

W     HEN explorations of the unknown wilderness west
        of the Alleghanies were begun a century and a
half ago, it was customary for explorers to keep Journals
of what they saw and did. Some of these journals have
been published, others remain in the original manuscripts,
and yet others have perished. As a matter of course,
where there are only the original manuscripts, they are
not attainable except through the individual owners; and
even of those that have been published, some have grown
so scarce as to be practically inaccessible to the general
reader. Some of these journals are too valuable as his-
toric documents to continue of use to so few readers and
to remain in such danger of being lost forever on account
of their singleness or fewness of copies.
   It is the purpose of The Filson Club to make selec-
tions from these journals, and from time to time to include
them in its series of publications.  Their appearance in
this form will not only bring them within reach of the
members of the Club and of the reading public, but will
secure them against the destruction which has already
overtaken many of them and which threatens the others
with a like fate.

 

ii       rPreface.

   The earliest of these explorations, in what is now Ken-
tucky, that are known to us by written records, were by
Doctor Thomas Walker and Colonel Christopher Gist,
about the middle of the last century. La Salle was prob-
ably the first white man to see this country, but he saw
it from the Ohio River, which he conceived to be a trans-
continental stream which might float him to the Pacific
Ocean. He probably paid but little attention to the lands
on either side of the river while descending it toward an
imaginary China.  His description of the Falls of the
Ohio, which he reached in 1669, is sufficiently inaccurate
to suggest that Kentucky lands were not of his seeking.
Other explorers, as missionaries or traders, were on these
rivers and lands before Walker and Gist, but they left
no account of the country which has come down to us.
Authoritative records of explorations in this region begin
with the journal of Doctor Walker in 1750, and that of
Colonel Gist in 1751. Walker went through the eastern
part of what is n6w Kentucky, and Gist through the
northeastern.  Their combined  explorations, therefore,
acquaint us with a goodly portion of the State while in
its original condition, inhabited only by savages and wild
beasts. When these explorers were here, not a house
had been built for habitation nor a field opened for culti-
vation by civilized man.  The primeval forest, with its

 

                        Preface.                       iii

mighty trees and awful shade, covered the whole land
except where severed by rivers or interrupted by cane-
brakes and prairies.  It is something to see this goodly
land, wild, grand, and beautiful in its state of nature, and
these journals are the medium through which the best
view is to be had.
   These journals have been edited for the thirteenth
number of The Filson Club publications by Colonel J.
Stoddard Johnston, Vice- President of the Club.  His
knowledge of the history of the country and his familiarity
with its geography made him the man of all others for
the work to be done. He had personally gone over parts
of the routes of both Walker and Gist, and had famil-
iarized himself with the records left by other explorers in
the same country. He had left nothing undone to make
himself master of his subject. As evidence of his excep-
tional qualifications as editor of these journals, it may be
stated that in i888 Mr. William C. Rives, a descendant
of Doctor Walker, published a partial edition of his journal
-partial because there were absent from it a number of
pages of the original manuscript that could not then be
found. In spite of these missing leaves, Colonel Johnston,
with his superior knowledge of the country and its history,
was able to follow the route of Doctor Walker through
the State and supply missing names and facts. These

 

Preface.



absent leaves have since been found, and confirm the
route marked out by Colonel Johnston, as well as names
and facts supplied by him. The Walker journal, as here
published by The Filson Club, contains these missing
leaves, and therefore for the first time appears in full as
the author wrote it.
   The foot-notes, the comments, and the appendices of
Colonel Johnston will be found to be valuable additions
to these journals. They explain much that the lapse of
time and changes in the country had rendered obscure,
and adapt the text of the eighteenth century to the readers
of the nineteenth. It is believed that the reproduction
of the journals of Walker and Gist as the thirteenth
publication of The Filson Club will be accepted as a val-
uable contribution to our early knowledge of the country
embraced, and especially of that part of it which has
since become the State of Kentucky.

                                   R. T. DURRErr,
                                               President.



iv

 

                 INTRODUCTION.

T  HE discovery of America four hundred years ago was
     an event not only remarkable for its influence upon
human civilization, but also as indicating the ignorance
of mankind, prior to that event, of the conformation of
the globe and of the existence of so large a component of
territory embraced in the Western Hemisphere. Grecian
and Roman civilization had risen and perished; the
Middle Ages had passed, and the revival of the arts and
literature had set in; the empires of the East had become
effete with age, and the wise men of the world believed
that human knowledge had exhausted the field of inquiry,
while yet the vast continents of America remained undis-
covered. The event which brought them to light marked
a new era in the world's history as distinct as the found-
ing of Rome or the advent of the Christian era. The
four centuries which have elapsed since Columbus sailed
from Palos embrace a record in the progress of civilization
before which all that preceded them appears as but the
dawn of a brighter day. And yet, while the period during
which this progress has reached the zenith of its present
stage is small compared to the antecedent centuries, an
analysis of the steps by which it has been attained will
                            2

 

Ivntroduction.



show that the progress was slow and that the real devel-
opment of the new continent has taken place in the past
century and a half, while the present century alone con-
tains the record of the material development wrought by
the arts and sciences which characterizes our present
civilization.
   When we reflect that Columbus first discovered land
in the Western Hemisphere October I2, I492, that Sebas-
tian Cabot landed in North America in I498, and Amerigo
Vespucci in South America in T499, it must be borne in
mind that it was not until i607, more than one hundred
vears after the discovery of America, that the first white
settlement was made at Jamestown, Virginia, and i620
when the Mayflower landed at Plymouth. For nearly an
hundred years after this the founders of these colonies
and their descendants were confined in their knowledge
of the geography of the great continent west of them to
a narrow coast territory, practically bounded by the Blue
Ridge and its northern extension.
   The first authentic explorer who penetrated the interior
of North America from the eastern coast was De Soto,
the Spanish Governor of Cuba, who in 1539-42 marched
from Florida to the Mississippi, near the present site of
Memphis, and lost his life in the venture; but the account
left by Garcilaso, the historian of the expedition, is so



vi

 
                      Introduction.                    vii

vague that his route for the greater part can not be
defined, and for all practical results the exploit was a
failure, no territorial acquisition enuring to the country
whence he hailed, except that of Florida.
  The main idea which animated Columbus in his voyage,
to find a new route to China, continued for more than
two centuries after his death to be the one which domi-
nated his successors; and the theory that this continent
was really a part of the Flowery Kingdom was only suc-
ceeded by one that only a comparatively narrow strip of
land separated the Atlantic Ocean from the South Sea or
Pacific Ocean. In 1603, when Champlain entered the
Gulf of St. Lawrence and discovered the rapids of the
St. Lawrence River, he called the stream "La Chine,"
indicating that he believed it a river of China.
   In i671 was made the first exploration from the Vir-
ginia coast beyond the Blue Ridge. It was projected
upon the theory that the waters which flowed westward
beyond the Appalachian chain, of which that range was
believed to be the backbone, flowed to the South Sea,
and in the belief that this ocean was not far distant.
General Abram Wood, who lived at the Falls of the
Appomattox, the present site of Petersburg, Virginia, was
commissioned by Governor Berkeley to solve the problem.
The history of this expedition has come down to us in

 
viii                 Introduction.

the quaint journal of Thomas Batts, who was one of its
members, and begins thus: "A commission being granted
the Honble Major Genl Wood for ye findeing out of
the Ebbing and flowing of ye waters behind the mountains
in order to the Discovery of the South Sea; Thomas
Batts, Thomas Wood, Robert Fallam, accompanied by
Perecute, a great man of the Apomatock Indians and Jack
Nesam formerly servant to Major Genl Wood with 5
horses set forward from the Apomatock Town in Vir-
ginia about Eight of the Clock in the morning being
Fryday Septr Ist I67I, that they travelled about 40
miles, took up their quarters and found they had travelled
from the Okenechee path due West." A daily entry in
the journal records their adventures until September 25th,
at which time they returned to the point from which the
expedition parted. In that interval they followed approxi-
mately the line of 360 30', which afterward became the
boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina, until
they came to the Alleghany Mountains, into which at this
point the Blue Ridge had become merged. This they
ascended, and, proceeding northwest, came to the river
which General Wood named the New River, as it is
now called, but which was long known as Wood's River.
It is the principal tributary of the Kanawha, which being
for a time called Wood's River, the name was erroneously

 
Introduction.



said to have been derived from an Indian name signify-
ing the River of the Woods. After having for several days
had distant views of the river, the entry of the i6th of
September says: "About io of the Clock they set for-
ward and after they had travelled io miles one of the
Indians killed a dear; presently after they had a sight
of a curious River like the Thames agt. Chelcey (Chelsea),
but had a fall yt made a great noise whose Course was
then N. and so as they supposed ran W. about certain
pleasant mountains which they saw to the Westward.
Here they took up their quarters and found their course
had been W. and by N. Here they found Indian Fields
with Corn Stalks in them and understood afterward the
Mohetans had lived there not long before."
   They then took formal possession of the country by
marking the trees with branding - irons with the initials
of the members of the company, and made formal proc-
lamation in these words: "Long live King Charles ye
2nd King of England, Scotland, France, Ireland and
Virginia and all the teretoryes thereunto belonging De-
fender of ye Faith."
   "yWhen they came to ye River side they found it bet-
ter and broader than they expected full as broad as the
Thames over agt. Waping, ye Falls much like the Falls
of James River, in Virginia, and imagined by the water-



ix

 
Introduction.



marks it flowed there about 3 feet. It was then ebbing
water. They sett up a stick by the water but found it
ebb very slowly."
   The Indian guides whom they had brought with them
from the Tolera nation eastward being impatient to return,
they reluctantly started on their homeward journey with-
out having been able to reach the South Sea, which they
believed not far off, but the journal adds that "when
they were on the Top of the Hill they took a prospect
as far as they could see and saw westerly over certain
delightful hills a fogg arise and a glimmering light as
from water and suppose they may be some great Bog."
   It was many years after this before the delusion of the
proximity of the South Sea, which this exploration seemed
to confirm, was relinquished, and even then that theory
only gave way to another equally erroneous, that the
waters beyond the mountains, if not flowing westward to
the ocean, found their way to the northern lakes. As
late as I716, Alexander Spottswood, Governor of Virginia,
was the first white man who had crossed the Blue Ridge
proper.  In that year he made his celebrated Golden
Horse Shoe Expedition, crossing the Blue Ridge at the
head of the Rappahannock, through Swift Run Gap, and,
entering the Shenandoah Valley, discovered the river of
that name, which, from the fertility of the soil adjacent,



x

 

                     In/roduclion.                    xi

he named the Euphrates. As its course was northward,
he concluded it emptied into the lakes. One of the com-
pany, Mr. John Fontaine, has left a journal giving an
interesting account of the expedition. Reaching the top
of the Blue Ridge, he says: "We drank King George's
health and all the Royal Family's at the very top of the
Appalachian Mountains," and, upon reaching the river, he
adds: "The Governor had graving irons, but could not
grave anything, the stones were so hard. I graved my
name on a tree by the river side; and the Governor
buried a bottle with a paper inclosed on which he writ
that he took possession of this place in the name and for
King George the First of England.  We had a good
dinner, and after it we got the men together and loaded
all their arms and we drank the King's health in cham-
pagne, and fired a volley -the Princess's health in Burgundy
and fired a volley, and all the rest of the Royal Family
in claret and a volley. We drank the Governor's health
and fired another volley. We had several sorts of liquors,
viz: Virginia red wine and white wine, Irish usquebaugh,
brandy, shrub, rum, champagne, canary, punch water,
cider, c. . . . We called the highest mountain Mount
George and the one we crossed over Mount Spottswood."
As a memorial of this jolly expedition Governor Spotts-
wood, on his return to Williamsburg, the Capital, insti-

 

Inl/oduct/cOn.



tuted the order of the Golden Horse Shoe, presenting
each of the gentlemen who accompanied him with a small
horse shoe of gold, inscribed with the legend, Sic Juvat
/h-anuscendc,)yc montes. The condition requisite for further
admission into the order was that the applicant should
prove that he had crossed the mountain and drunk his
Majesty's health upon Mount George. Sixteen years after
this, in 1732, Andrew Lewis was one of the pioneer
settlers in the Shenandoah Valley, leading the van of the
great Scotch-Irish immigration which soon set in in that
direction. and whence Kentucky drew so largely for its
pioneers.
   Between the time of Wood's discovery of the New
River as a supposed tributary of the South Sea and
Spottswood's discovery of the Shenandoah as a possible
tributary of the northern lakes, a great step had been
taken in the solution of the problem of the relation of
this continent with a western ocean. The French had,
early after taking possession of Canada, availed them-
selves of the water route afforded by the St. Lawrence
and the lakes to push expeditions of discovery and trade
to the west. They had, as early as the middle of the
seventeenth century, penetrated as far as the site of Detroit,
and soon after began to establish trading-posts and mis-
sions at various points in the territory adjacent. In the fall



X11

 
                      Introduc/iolu.                   xiii

or early winter of 1669 Robert Cavalier Sieur de la Salle,
inspired by the idea of solving the problem of the great
river which was said to empty into the South Sea, made
an expedition from Canada by way of the head waters of
the Ohio to the Falls, the present site of Louisville, but
prosecuted his adventure no further, and returned to the
lakes to pursue his explorations along that line.'
   In i673 Marquette, passing from Lake Michigan by
way of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, penetrated to the
Mississippi, gave the first authentic account of its exist-
ence since its discovery by De Soto, and exploded the
fallacy of a water connection from the westward of the
Alleghanies to the South Sea. But the identity of this
stream with that of De Soto was not fully established
until in i682, when La Salle in that year descended the
great river from  the Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico. He
reached the mouth April i9th, and took formal possession
of the territory in the name of Louis XIV, the Grand
Monarque, after the manner of that day, and gave it the
name of Louisiana in his honor. For his great achieve-
ment, as the result of many years of labor and adventure,
honors were lavished upon him by his sovereign, and he
was intrusted with the command of a great expedition for

   'The Centenary of Louisville, by Colonel R. T. Durrett. Filson Club
Publications Number 8, I893, page 20.
                             3

 

IAlroducioni.



the settlement of the new territory, but fell a victim to
treachery in the perilous undertaking.  Soon afterward
military  posts and  missions were established on the
Illinois, Mississippi, and Wabash rivers, which, in con-
junction with these rivers and the lakes, formed a chain
of military communication and trade from Montreal to
New Orleans. Long before the English had projected set-
tlements beyond the Alleghany Mountains the French
were in possession of the Mississippi Valley, had mapped
and described its geography and topography, and until
the termination of the seven years' war by the treaty
of Paris, February io, 1763, claimed all the land
watered by streams flowing westward from the Alleghanies.
Prior to 1750 there is no record of English exploration,
much less of settlement, in the trans-Alleghany region
X orth of the latitude of 36' 30'. The only exception as
to the territory south of that line is in the case of a few
traders among the Indian tribes which inhabited territory
now embraced in Northwestern Georgia and Tennessee.
From Eastern Virginia there was a brisk trade in the early
part of the eighteenth century with the Indians of North
and South Carolina, and thence to the northwest with the
Cherokees and Creeks of North Georgia and the Valley of
the Tennessee. James Adair, a Scotch trader from North
Carolina, who lived for thirty years among the Cherokees,



.MV\

 

Introduction.



published in London in I775 an extensive work upon the
manners and customs, and especially the religious charac-
ter of these Indians, evincing much erudition and minute-
ness of observation. He claimed that they were red Jews,
had many Hebrew words in their vocabulary, carried the
Ark of the Covenant, and observed many Jewish rites
and customs. (History of the American Indians, etc., by
James Adair, a trader with the Indians and resident in
their country forty years. London. 1775.)
   But it was not until I748 that any organized move-
ment was made looking to the acquirement or settle-
ment of lands west of the Alleghany. In that and the
succeeding year two large land companies were organized
in London, under Royal Charter-the Loyal Land Com-
pany, authorized to survey and locate eight hundred
thousand acres in the territory now embraced in Ken-
tucky north of 360 30', and the Ohio Company, author-
ized to locate and settle five hundred thousand acres
between the Kanawha and Monongahela rivers, and
upon the waters of the Ohio, below the junction of
the Monongahela and the Alleghany. As representative
of the Loyal Land Company Doctor Thomas Walker
made an exploration westward of the Alleghany Moun-
tains in the spring of 1750, in search of suitable lands for
settlement, passing through Kentucky from Cumberland



xv

 
Infroducfion.



Gap northward, and in the autumn of the same year Chris-
topher Gist passed through Ohio westward to the Great
Miami, and thence from the mouth of the Scioto southward
throuh Kentucky. They were the earliest white men
who explored this territory who have left a record of their
observations, and their journals are given in the following
pages, with full explanatory foot-notes. That of Gist was
published more than an hundred years ago in a work the
full title of which is as follows  ''A  Topographical
Description of such parts of North America as are con-
tained in the annexed Map of the Middle British Colonies,
c., in North America. By T. Pownall, M. P., late Gov-
ernor, c., of his MNajesty's Provinces of Massachusetts and
South Carolina and Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey.
London. Published for J. Almon, opposite Burlington
House in Piccadilly.  1776." The text of this work has
been followed in all its details of spelling, capitals, and
punctuation. It has been republished and largely drawn
on by historians, but has been the occasion of many
errors, from a failure to interpret correctly some parts of
the route pursued.
   The journal of Doctor Walker is now for the first time
given in complete form. Although its existence has been
long known, and brief reference is made to it in various
histories of the West, no part of it was published until



Xxsi

 

In/roduction.



within the last decade, when it appeared with the following
title: "Journal of an Exploration in the Spring of the
Year 1750 by Dr. Thomas Walker, of Virginia, with a
Preface by William Cabell Rives, LL. B., Member of
the American  Historical Association.  Boston : Little,
Brown  Co.     i888."  This publication, issued by a
descendant of Doctor Walker, while a valuable contribu-
tion to Western history, was defective in the omission of
the sheets of the journal for the first ten days from
March 6th to March i6th, I 749-50, and for ten days
from April ioth to April 20th, 1750. Four years ago it
came under the observation of the editor of the present
publication, who became interested in correctly defining
Doctor Walker's route through Kentucky, which he was
satisfied had been incorrectly laid down by all others.
By a close study of the journal, notwithstanding the sec-
ond hiatus embraced the period through which Doctor
Walker passed into Kentucky, he succeeded in his effort,
and read a paper covering the subject before the Filson
Club, November i3, i894, accompanied by a map show-
ing his route, together with the location of the house
erected by him on the Cumberland River, which always
theretofore had been laid down on the early maps as due
south of Louisville, more than an hundred miles too far
west. He then addressed himself to the effort to find



xvi'i

 

xviii                 Introduction.

the missing sheets of the journal, and, after corresponding
with Doctor William C. Rives, son of the gentleman
above named, who first placed the journal in print, they
were fortunately recovered after a search among some of
the family papers long laid away. Doctor Rives kindly
sent them to the editor, with permission to restore them
to the journal in their proper place, and they, together
with the entire journal, from the text of Mr. William
Cabell Rives' publication cited, are given in the following
pages, with strict adherence to the spelling and other
features. The foot-notes, which have been made as brief
as is consistent with their object, give the location of the
explorer from day to day, together with such information
and explanation as will enable the reader to follow his
route. The missing leaves confirmed the editor in every
particular in which, in his original Filson Club paper,
he by hypothesis mapped out the route not embraced
in the mutilated journal, and no corrections of the map
made to illustrate his paper were found necessary. The
present paper is an expansion and elaboration of the orig-
inal one, and after very careful preparation is submitted as
a contribution to pioneer history, the necessity for which
has long been apparent to the student and compiler. It
was at first his purpose to present it unaccompanied with
any other, but the coincidence as to time of the explora-

 

                      Introduction.                    xix

tion by Christopher Gist, the fact that they traversed
different parts of the State, and the important influence
the two explorers and their labors had upon the settle-
ment of the West and of Kentucky, have induced him to
include both journals in one publication. The editor
makes his acknowledgments for valuable assistance derived
from "Christopher Gist's Journals," by William M. Dar-
lington, published in Pittsburgh by J. R. Welden, i888; to
Colonel R. T. Durrett, Captain James M. Bourne, and
others who have assisted him in preparing this work.

 This page in the original text is blank.


 

SKETCH OF DOCTOR THOMAS WALKER.



D   OCTOR THOMAS WALKER was born in King
      and Queen County, Virginia, January 25, 17I5.
His father, of the same name, was of a family long
settled in the tide - water section of Virginia, his first
American ancestor having come from Staffordshire, Eng-
land, in i65o, and been a member of the Colonial
Assembly in I662, as a representative from Gloucester
County. While the records of the family do not con-
tain much of the details of the lives of its earlier
representatives, they show them to have been of a
sturdy stock, and to have belonged to the class of Vir-
ginia planters which constituted the most respectable
and influential element of the colonial population. Doctor
Walker's mother was Susanna Peachy, to whom his
father was married September 24, 1709.  Their children
were Mary Peachy, born in 1710, who married Doctor
George Gilmer, of Williamsburg, Virginia, who left many
descendants of distinction, including a Governor each of
Virginia and Georgia; John, born April 29, 18i1o who mar-
ried Miss Baylor, of Essex County, and Thomas, the
subject of this sketch.  It is to be regretted that but
                           4

 
2        Sketch of Doctor Thomas Walker.

little is known of the early life of Doctor Walker or of
his educational advantages, but it is inferred that he
enjoyed the best afforded at that time in the Colony, and
that he attended the academical or medical course, one
or both, of William and Mary College. That, as the title
which he bore indicates, he was a physician, though not
confining himself strictly to the practice, may be inferred
from the evidence afforded by his journal. But, as one
of his biographers says in correcting an error stating that
he was a divine, " a more conclusive proof of his being a
physician is the fact that in June, July, and August, I757,
he made oft-repeated visits to Colonel Peter Jefferson,
Pnid stood by his bedside when he died on the I7th of
August in that year." It is more than probable that with
an adventurous spirit he preferred a more active life and
one which offered more remunerative returns, and laid
aside his saddle-bags to become a surveyor-a profession
which at that time and later drew to its service the most
representative Virginians.  Besides, another inducement
naturally led him to make this change.  In 174I, when
he was twenty-six years of age, he married a lady who
brought to him a landed estate of fifteen thousand acres,
and the proper care and subdivision of it afterward made
it an object of sufficient importance to induce him to
take this step.  The companion whom    he chose and

 

Sketch of Doctor Thomas Walker.



who became the mother of his twelve children and the
ancestress of a long line of distinguished descendants
was a young widow several years older than himself-
Mrs. Nicholas Meriwether, whose maiden name was Mil-
dred Thornton. She was a second cousin of Washington,
whose elder brother Samuel had married one of her near
relatives. Her land was situated in Albemarle County,
east of Charlottesville, in one of the most historic portions
of Virginia, and here he afterward erected the homestead
known as Castle Hill, which is still occupied by his lineal
descendants. He was the intimate friend of Peter Jefferson,
the father of the author of the Declaration of Independ-
ence, and at his death became his executor and the
guardian of his illustrious son.  From  association with
him it is easy to conceive how naturally his mind was
influenced and his life turned into the current of adven-
ture for which his new calling so well fitted him. The
civilization of Virginia had long been confined to a com-
paratively narrow strip of territory between the Blue Ridge
and the Atlantic.  In I728 the increase in population
prompted the extension of the boundary line between
North Carolina and Virginia, and in that and the succeed-
ing year it was established as far west as the foot of the
Alleghany Mountains by a commission, at the head of
which was Colonel William Byrd, of Westover, His account



3

 
Sketch of Doctor Thomas Walker.



of the survey, as given in the "Westover Papers," is one
of the most interesting contributions to colonial history,
and discloses the fact that he ran the line seventy-two miles
beyond the limit fixed by his associates, who protested
that they had already reached a point to which it would
require fifty years for the settlements to extend. Yet in
twenty years the tide of immigration had reached the base
of the Alleghanies, and a further extension of the line
westward was required. For this service were selected by
the Colonial Assembly Joshua Fry, a graduate of Oxford,
the distinguished Professor of Mathematics of William and
Mary College, and Peter Jefferson, whose calling was that
of a surveyor. In 1749, accompanied by Daniel Weldon
and William Churton, Commissioners on the part of North
Carolina, they extended the line on the parallel of 36' 30'
seventy-three miles further to Steep Rock, a point about
twenty-five miles southeast of Abingdon, Virginia.  Fry
and Jefferson were further associated as civil engineers in
the preparation of the map of Virginia which bears their
name, published by them in 175I, and which was used in
the treaty of peace between England and the United
States at the close of the Revolutionary War. To still
further show the impetus which had required this exten-
sion and its rapid p