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WALKER, JAMES (1756-1837). James Walker, one of Stephen F. Austin'sqv Old Three Hundredqv colonists, was born in 1756. During the American Revolution he served in Orange County, Virginia, and Virginia Continental line units. He married Catherine Miller on September 9, 1783, and they had fourteen children, including Susanna, who later married Phillip Singleton.qv They lived in Virginia and Kentucky before moving to Texas in 1824. Walker received a Spanish land grant of one league in what is now Washington County on July 21, 1824. The 1826 census lists him as a farmer and stock raiser over fifty years of age, with a wife over fifty, three children, and four slaves. Walker suffered loses in property and health during the Runaway Scrapeqv and died in 1837 in Washington County. His son, James Walker, Jr., was born in Madison County, Kentucky, on October 20, 1793. He married Abler Collett on April 25, 1816, in Wayne County, Kentucky, and they had five children. She died in 1831. He moved his family to New Year Creek in Washington County, Texas, in 1835. Walker later received 640 acres for service to the Republic of Texasqv from March 1 to May 30, 1836, and 1,280 acres for being in the battle of San Jacintoqv as a private in Col. Sidney Sherman'sqv command. Walker died on March 24, 1873, and is buried at the Cobb family cemetery in McLennan County. A third James Walker was born about 1790 in Chester County, South Carolina, and came to Texas from Mississippi. He married Martha Telford about 1812. In 1835 he received a grant of land in Austin's colony and in what is now Zavala County. Both he and his wife died about 1845. A fourth James Walker came from Tennessee to fight in the Texas Revolution.qv He enlisted for six months on January 14, 1836, in Nacogdoches. Muster rolls give his age as twenty-three. He participated in the battle of San Jacinto and received one-third league in present Houston County. It was probably his mother, Martha Walker of Franklin City, Tennessee, whose letter to her son is now in the Texas Memorial Museum.qv BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eugene C. Barker, ed., The Austin Papers (3 vols., Washington: GPO, 1924-28). Lester G. Bugbee, "The Old Three Hundred: A List of Settlers in Austin's First Colony," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 1 (October 1897). Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Founders and Patriots of the Republic of Texas (Austin, 1963-). Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Muster Rolls of the Texas Revolution (Austin, 1986). Mrs. Harry Joseph Morris, comp. and ed., Citizens of the Republic of Texas (Dallas: Texas State Genealogical Society, 1977). Worth Stickley Ray, Austin Colony Pioneers (Austin: Jenkins, 1949; 2d ed., Austin: Pemberton, 1970). Virginia H. Taylor, The Spanish Archives of the General Land Office of Texas (Austin: Lone Star, 1955). Gifford E. White, The First Settlers of Houston County, Texas (Austin, 1983). Villamae Williams, Stephen F. Austin's Register of Families (Nacogdoches, Texas: Ericson, 1984).
John G. Johnson
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