It Pays to Know Somebody!

In the early 1800s, children were an economic asset and work was labor intensive.  Boys were taught to split rails, pile rocks, hoe corn, stoke fires, butcher, do carpentry, tanning and smithy work, and distilling skills.  Most likely boys also knew basic cooking, sewing and home remedy skills as well.  Receiving a boy's first rifle was a sure passage into manhood.

Although education as we know it was non-existent on the frontier in the early 1800s, the Walkers were treated as members of the better educated class.  There is a hint in history as to why...

Sam Houston lived with the Cherokee as a runaway and dropout from white society.  After returning to Tennessee, he set himself up as a schoolmaster based on a degree from "Indian University", as he called it.  He was an avid reader and a good speller and his one room school in Tennessee was said to have been his favorite place in his life.  The means by which any Walker children probably learned their ABCs as well.

Next time...The Jacksonian Man