The Long Hunters

To be a rifle hunter was an important frontier occupation.  Men left families and were gone in the wilderness for months at a time.  The first group of these "Long Hunters" was a party of 40 men from Virginia lead by James Knox in late 1770. This Long Hunters group camped in eastern Tennessee and set out in groups to the west and into northern Kentucky.

Walkers were a part of this group and after the Revolution, Joseph Walker (our Joe's father) liked Tennessee so well that he became the first Walker settle away from the family homestead in West Virginia.  He married Susan Willis in Goodland County in 1787.

Joseph Rutherford Walker was the second son born to Joseph and Susan in December 1798 in Roane County, Tennessee.  There were 3 other brothers and 3 sisters in the family.  All seven children made it to adulthood and had large families of their own-including one cousin, Andrew Jackson.

Next time...Early Frontier Education