The Family of John Walker III
This article is intended to provide genealogical background for the Walker family who settled in Castle's Woods Virignia about 1770. Details of the family history is provided in separate articles about various family members. This article is designed to provide the reader with background information needed to understand some of the Indian Captivity stories told about the Walker family, and about the Cowan and Handley families.
The head of this family was John Walker III of the Wigton Walker line. John III married Ann Houston in March of 1734, on the Nottingham Lots in Old Chester County, PA (modern Cecil County, MD). Their personal history is fairly well documented with primary sources, and their movements in subsequent years is well understood. Shortly after their marriage the young couple settled near Staunton, Virginia. Other family members settled a a few years later immediately to the south in what was called "Borden's Grant" on a stream that came known after them, "Walkers Creek". In the early 1750's John moved his family a few miles south to settle near his relations on Walkers Creek. By 1756 John and his family, left the area settling in Orange County NC. These moves may have been a response to widespread Indian attacks in the Valley of Virginia during the French and Indian War.
John remained in Ornage County for the next 15 years or so. In 1769 the area in southwestern Virginia opened for settlement. John, with adult children needing land, wives and or husbands, relocated a final time, settling in the Castle's Woods area of what was then Fincastle County, later Washingotn, and still later the modern Russell and Scott Counties.