Newspapers / Forest City Courier (Forest … / July 31, 1930, edition 1 / Page 10
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REMINISCENCES OF HON. FELIX WALKER Memoirs of Rutherford County', Fir.t Court Clerk, U. S. Congressman, Explorer, and Soldier Officially Presented. (This transcript from the origi nal manuscript of Hon. Felix Walker, written in 1826, is officially presented by permission of Mrs. Estelle Tri chelle Oltrogge, of Jacksonville, Fla., a great-great-granddaughter of Con gressman Walker.) In attempting to give a history or biography of our ancestors, I cannot look back and avail myself of emi nent family distinctions as others may do and have a right to do; hon est poverty appears to be the lot of our inheritance. The only honorable title we can claim by birthright, on which I can proceed with certainty, although we might have a claim on the merits of George Walker, a dissenting clergy man who distinguished himself in the j wars of King James, in Ireland, a-« bout the year 1690, in saving the city | of Derry, by his valor and stratagem, J when it was thought all was lost j when besieged by the King's troops. From the information afforded by my father, and what I could collect from an old and respectable citizen, Mr. William Smart, (an elder of the church in Rutherford county, North Carolina, now deceased) relative to our family descent, states that my grandfather, John Walker, was an emigrant from Ireland about the year 1720, settled in the state of Delaware about or near a small town called Appaquinimey, lived and died in that State, was buried in a church called Back Creek church on Bohe mia River. I passed the church in my travels through that country in the year 1796. Mr. Smart related that my grandfather Walker was a plain, hon est man (a farmer), in moderate circumstances, of upright character, and respectable in his standing. He, Mr. Smart, made one or two crops with him when a young man. We must suppose he died in the meri dian of life. He left two sons and three daughters. The eldest son, j Thomas, died young; my father, the j youngest, was bound to the cooper'.; trade, and followed it some years within my recollection after he had * a family. One of my father's sisters married a man by the name of Humphreys, father of Colonel Ralph Humphreys, who died at or near Natchez about thirty years past, the father of Geo. Humphreys, who lives in that coun ty. One sister married Benjamin Gruble (Grubb?), a respectable farmer of Pennsylvania, but remov ed to South Carolina and died there. The ether sister married Colonel Joseph Curry, settled about five miles below Columbia on the Congaree River. I was boarded there to school in the year 1764, at eleven years old. The school house stood on the site where Granby is now situated. It was then nearly a wilderness, a sandy desert, and so thinly inhabited > that a school could scarcely be made t up, and now a considerable commer-1 cial town. My father, John Walker, after his J freedom from apprenticeship, went up the country as an adventurer, settled on the south branch of the Potomac in Hampshire county, Vir ginia. Being a new country and game plenty, he became a hunter of the first order, famous in that profession, in which he practiced nearly to the end of his life. He was with General Washington in Braddock's Army in the year 1755., Previous to that time he married my mother, Elizabeth Watson, of a good family from Ire land, by whom he had seven sons, no daughters. I was the eldest, born nineteenth day of July, 1753. The names of his sons after my own' were John, James, Thomas, Joseph, George and Jacob. I like to have forgotten William who was the eighth son, although the fourth in succes sion, and only now living (William, Jacob and myself). After Braddock's defeat, which happened on the ninth day of July, 1755, the tountry ex posed to the depredation of the In dians and in continual jeopardy, my father removed to North Carolina, settled in Lincoln county on Lee Creek, about ten miles east of the village of Lincolnton, worked at his trade and hunted for his livelihood according to the custom of the times: game was then in abundance. About this time the Cherokees, a powerful and war-like nation of In dians, broke out and murdered some of the inhabitants on the frontier, j He went out. as a volunteer against the Indians, joined the army from South Carolina, under Colonel Grant, a Scotch officer, marched on to the Cherokee nation (a battle was fought at Estitoa, a town on Tenn essee River about fifty miles distant from my own residence) in the fall of 1762. Colonel Grant was there repulsed with considerable loss, yet in the event, the Indians were par tially subdued and made peace, for a time. It did not continue long; the war broke the year after. On his return from the expedition he purchased a beautiful spot of land |on Crowder's Creek, about four miles from Kings Mountain, in the same county, and removed there in the fall of 1763, being then a fresh part; he cultivated some land and raised stock in abundance and I can then remember that my mother and her assistants made as much butter in one summer as purchased a negro: woman in Charlestown. My father | hunted and killed deer in abundance and maintained his family on wild meat in style. I remember he kept me following him on horse to carry the venison until I was weary of the business, which also gave me a taste for the forest. He resided on Crowder Creek until the year of 1768 the range began to break and the game not so plenty, his ardor for range and game still continued. He purchased a tract of land of four hun ! dred acres from one, Moses Moore, a j brother hunter for one doubloon, which at this time could not be pur chased for five thousand dollars, such the rapid increase of the value of land in half a century. This is the farm and plantation at the mouth of Cane Creek (or second Broad River) in Rutherford county, settled [by my father in 1768, on which he resided until he raised his family until they were all grown, and on part of said tract I lived for seven teen years, and had six children born, Betsie Watson, Elvira, Felix Hamp ton, Joseph, Jefferson and Isabella. In the year of 1787 my father re moved to the mouth of Green River in the same county (about ten miles distant) where he lived until he died on the twenty-fifth of January, 1796, in the sixty-eighth year of his age; left that valuable inheritance of land in the forks of Green and Broad River to his youngest son, Jacob Walker, who lives on it to this day. My mother died on Easter Sunday in April, 1808, about the age of 75, and buried by the side of my father in the family burying ground on the plantation. I trust she was a good woman and gone to rest. My father bore several commis sions under the old government; was colonel-commandant, and judge of the court for many years in the coun ty of Rutherford, but on the com mencement of the Revolutionary War he resigned all his commissions, both local and military, and united his interests and efforts in defense of his country against the oppressions of the British government and was a member of the First (Third) Public i Convention held in North Carolina at Hillsborough in July (August) 1775, on the Revolution of the Amer ican States. I was with him at that place. He took an early and decided part in that war, was appointed a regular officer; in the '.Continental army. His grown sons were all ac tive in that war in defense of their country. He was in person a man of .slender habit, full of energy and (swift on foot; a suavity in his man iners that was graceful and attrac itive, and a cultivated understanding ' for his times and his day, and proper enthusiast in his friendship. Among my acquaintances I knew no man of a more liberal, hospitable and bene volent disposition (even to a fault) which often proved injurious to his pecuniary circumstances, but have thought he was wanting in that cool, deliberate, calculating faculty so necessary ih all the occurences of life, to balance the scale of our ex istence; yet he maintained such a consistency of character as insured . him the confidence and friendship of , f society through life and left a good I reputation and inheritance to his . children. This is a narrative of our ancestors down to the present gen- L eration so far as my information ex . tends. i > When I proceed to relate the THE FOREST CITY COURIER, THURSDAY, JULY 31, 1930. reminiscences of my own desultory J walk through life, variable as the: winds that incessantly charge through j the atmosphere, I blush to record the working of the needle in the compass of my mind which has play ed and vibrated in every direction, l like the fool's eyes to the ends of the earth. A restless and enterpris- 1 ing anxiety was my constitutional misfortune, which in my later years I most sensibly see and feel, and has lost me half a life-time of repent ance, and, to speak comparatively, ten thousand disappointments. But to do the same justice to myself, and that I would to others, can acquit myself on the ground that my irre gularities were entirely and exclu sively my own, and, on the most scrupulous and strict examination, I cannot charge myself in any of my transactions through life, intention ally with malice or fraud afore- thought, of doing injury or injustice j to my Honesty, truth and | integrity has been my guiding pclar star through all the vicissitudes ! of my variable and checkered life. | At the age of sixteen my father i bound me to a merchant in Charles town (Mr. George Parker, an Eng lish gentleman of high standing in trade) for 5 years. He had three pre- j tices of very singular names, one j Noy Milly Stuckings, one Atlard' Belin, and myself, Felix Walker (the | j youngest). He used to boast that he [had three young men of such singu lar names none such to be found in' the city of Charlestown in one house, j either for name or service. I was highly gratified with my mode of life, j well approved by my master, car- ■ essed by my mistress, who treated me | with the sympathy and kindness of a child. I lived most delightfully for | a time while the novelties of the city | arrested my mind and occupied my j attention. At length those pleasures began to lag and I became weary and sat iated with the continual sameness of the city. My restless and anxious propensities began to prevail and I j thirsted and sighed for those plea-! sures that variety afforded. Some more than a year after being bound, I solicited my master to give me up my indentures and permit me to go home for a time, under promise to return and serve out my apprentice ship. This he absolutely and prompt ly refused, saying he could not, nor would not do without me; my fath er's and my own acquaintance in the country brought in a great cus tom., At length my father coming to town, I renewed my solicitations to go home and through the influence of my father, and he seeing I was determined to go, he let me off with seemingly great reluctance. In this j I believe my father committed an! error in taking me away. He ought j to have compelled me to business, ] and I have since thought that too much indulgence to a child, parti cularly in the rise or dawn of life, is the greatest injury we can do to tfcem. I have experienced something |of this in my own family. During my residence m Charles town in the Christmas of 1769 I heard the celebrated Dart Whitefield preach with great power. He was the greatest awakening preaeher that perhaps ever filled the sacred desk. He had most crowded congregations.l felt the power of the awakening spirii under his preaching but it soon went off. On my return home my fUther put me to work on the farm, which did not well accord with my feelings. Yet I submitted and worked faithfully for a while. I applied myself to mu sic, for which I had a predominant taste, and soon acquired a great pro ficiency in performing on the violin (then, called a fiddle) in which I excelled and although accustomed to frolic, I could never learn to dance. My father, discovering I had neither inclination or capacity for a farm er, he put me to school to Doctor Joseph Dobson of Burke County, from whom I received the best edu cation I have ever been in possession of, although no more than the com mon English, so-called. I returned from school in less than a year and lived at home nearly two years with out much restraint, yet I obeyed my father and mother with the greatest punctuality, but at the same time living according to the course of this world, fulfilling my desires of the flesh and of the mind and of the vanities of life with the greatest avidity. At length, becoming weary of so limited a circle, I solicited my father to suffer me to go to Ken tucky (which was then called Lou vizy) with Colonel Richard Hender son, who had made a purchase of jthat country from the Cherokee In- J di&ns. He consented, and according my father and myself set out to a * reaty held for that purpose on the Vatauga in the month of February 775, where we met with Colonel ( Jenderson and the Indians in treaty, j there saw the celebrated Indian :hief called Atticullaculla—in our ( ongue "the little carpenter. He was ( t very small man and said to be then ( linety years of age and had the :haracter of being the greatest pou- ( ician ever known in the Cherokee, lation. He was sent as an agent or | )lenipotentiary from his nation to { England and dined with King George he Second with the nobility, so I heard lim declare in a public oration de ivered at the treaty. He was an eloquent orator and graceful speaker n his Indian way. The name of 'Little Carpenter" was given him jy similitude. The Indians said he vould modify and connect his poli ;ical views so as to make every joint it to its place as a white carpenter »an do in wood. You may find his lame mentioned in Weem's "Life >f General Marion/' The treaty being finished artd a purchase made, there associated and :cllected together about thirty men. Hr. William Twitty with six men ind myself were from Rutherford; he others a miscellaneous collection. We rendezvoused at the Long Is and in Holstein. Colonel Daniel Boone was our leader and pilot. Nev >r was a company of more cheerful md ardent spirits set out to find a Meeting the ISeeds of Millions ■IL of People / The low-priced automobile has brought greater opportunity and added hours of recreation to millions of men and women. BECAUSE the automobile is such an im portant factor in the lives and pros perity of so many people, the purpose of the Ford Motor Company is something more than the mere manufacture of a motor car. i There is no service in simply setting up a machine or a plant and letting it turn out goods. The service extends into every detail of the business design, production, the wages paid and the sell ing price. All are a part of the plan. The Ford Motor Company looks upon itself as charged with making an auto mobile that will meet the needs of millions of people and to provide it at a low price. That is its mission. That is its duty and its obligation to the public. The search for better ways of doing things is never-ending. There is cease less, untiring effort to find new methods and new machines that will save steps and time in manufacturing. The Ford plants are, in reality, a great mechanical uni versity, dedicated to the advancement of industry. Many manufacturers come to see and share the progress made. The greatest progress comes by never standing still. Today's methods, however successful, can never be taken as wholly right. They represent simply the best efforts of the moment. To morrow must bring an improve- r.ew country. We proceeded andjt traveled, cutting our way through a ; wilderness of near three hundred | miles, until we arrived within about} 'twelve miles of Kentucky River j when, on the twenty-fifth of March, ' 1775, we were fired on by the Indians 1 while asleep in our camp; Mr. Twitty 1 ?nd his negro man killed, myself badly wounded, the company despon ■ dent and discouraged. We contin ' ued there for twelve days. I was car 'ried in a litter between two horses 'to the bank of the Kentucky river, where we stopped and made a sta- ( 1 tion and called it Boonsborough. I 'well recollect it was a "lick". A; 'vast number of buffaloes moved oft 'on our appearance. I saw some run ning, some loping and some walking quietly as if they had been driven. It was calculated there were near two hundred. i But let me not forget, nor never shall forget, the kindness, tenderness and sympathy shown me by Colonel; Daniel Boone. He was my father, my physician and my friend; attended j me, cured my wounds, consoled me j ir. my distress and fostered me as his own child. He is no more, has i gone to rest, but let me pay my tri— bute of gratitude to his memory and j his ashes. 1 In a few days after we had fixed j our residence, Colonel Richard Hen- j ' derson, Colonel Luttrell and Colo- ' nel Slaughter (from Virginia) arriv- I FORD MOTOR COMPANY ment in the methods of the day before. Hard work usually finds the way. Once it was thought impossible to cast gray iron by the endless chain method. All precedent was against it and every previous experiment had failed. But fair prices to the public demanded that waste ful methods be eliminated. Finally the way was found. Abetter way of making axle shafts saved thirty-six million dollars in four years. A new method of cutting crankcases re duced the cost by $500,000 a year. The perfection of a new machine saved a similar amount on such a little thing an one bolt. 'l'hen electric welding was de veloped to make many bolts unnecessary and to increase structural strength. Just a little while ago, an endless chain conveyor almost four miles long was in stalled at the Rouge plant. This conveyor has a daily capacity of 300,000 part-3 weighing more than 2,000,000 pounds. By substituting the tireless, unvarying machine for tasks formerly done by hand, it has made the day's work easier for thousands of workers and saved time and money in the manufacture of the car. All of these things are done in the interest of the public —so that the benefits of reliable, economical transportation may be placed within the means of every one. Ed with about fifteen men - l > >vno icned with us. This addition company consisted of about' men, well armed with good r j fle , ty onel Henderson, being propria j 13of ed as governor, organized a La ment. We elected members, ed an assembly, formed a Con?" tion, passed some laws little community. This assembly held about the beginning 0 f v 1775.. This was the first fsatur civilization ever attempted i n flourishing and enlightened .t, +n 1 ' St called Kentucky. r i From the recent occurences of unexpected an event, my friend , protector, Mr. Twitty, taken fa! from my side, myself deeply ed without much expectation 0 f [' covery, brought me to solemn refl e *' tions should I be taken off, would be my destination in the nJI . T ~ * c v >ori4 to come. I could make no favorabh ■calculations as to my future hap,; ness. Under these impressions I j indeed excited to make every po J | ble exertion to meet death, prayei | much and formed solemn resolutions ito amend my life by repentance | should I be spared; but on my recov. ery, my feelings wearing off, and my j duties declining, I gradually glided back to my former courses and p ur . sued my pleasures with the greatest avidity. I (To Be Continued Next Week)
Forest City Courier (Forest City, N.C.)
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July 31, 1930, edition 1
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