Appalachian Forest Wars

The first public building in the Walker Creek Nation was a fortified blockhouse constructed of black walnut logs in a clearing valley 300 yards above "Walker Creek".  Private forts were also built by most settlers for protection against the Indians.

The relationship between the settlers and the Indians was "we understand each other perfectly - we want the same land, we will not tolerate each other on said land, and one or the other of us will be displaced or eliminated".  Such was the climate in the Appalachians of the early 1800s and it wasn't long before it became a dangerous situation.

The Appalachians were the location of some of the most bitter and prolonged conflicts ever fought in the western worlds and by far the most deadly settler/Indian confrontations in North American. 

Compare 1500 American soldiers killed in ALL Indian Wars west of the Mississippi to the 700 that were killed in one 2 day battle in 1791 on the Maumee.  In 1849 and 1869 as wagon trains went West, 362 settlers were killed by Plains Indians, whereas 360 settlers were killed at Wyoming Valley, PA on July 4, 1178.  

A very conservative count of the fighting in the generations of settlers and Indians in the Appalachians would be 5000 white settlers and 5000 Indians died in the "forest wars".

Next time-Indians Attack Walker Valley

Early Walker Trivia You Might Not Know

In the Walker's homestead in the Appalachian Valley a new axe was forged called "America's Felling Ax" which would take and hold an edge with the poll wider and flattened to give weight. The hickory shaft was slimmer and curved.  A young man, if he was industrious, could make 4-6 dozen rails per day using the Walker's new discovery.

A man could kill a bear, chop off his paws, head and make one slit along the ventral line, pull off the skin in one piece, climb into it and have an instant bear blanket.  Although the smell might kill him, the freezing cold wouldn't!

Thin sliced turkey breast was used often as bread on the early frontier.  A piece of bear meat, "real meat" went between.

Ever wonder why pioneer drank so much whiskey? There is a good reason - whiskey cut the grease that over time would coat the tongue, teeth and throat of anyone eating a primarily greasy game diet as the early pioneers did.  

Now you know!!

Next time - Evolution of frontier weapons in the Appalachians...

The Scotch-Irish Walkers

Joseph Walker was born in the 1798 into three generations of Scotch-Irish Appalachian Settlers.  His great-grandfather and great-grandmother, John and Katerine Walker, arrived in America and settled in the Great Valley in the Appalachians, naming their family settlement "Creek Nation".  

Situated under Jump Mountain, all the Walker family and relatives lived in the same area as pioneers tended to do.  The climate was good and the land was fertile.  The Walkers planted corn in the clearing of the dense forests.  Corn was relatively easy to grow and could be used for a variety of uses from corn whiskey to sell, corn husks as animals fodder, to parching kernels for storage.

Note: Jump Mountain was so named for a Cherokee maiden who leaped off the mountain in an effort to save her Shawnee lover from her family's vengeance.  It is not known whether it changed any opinions or feelings...

A Handsome Pioneer

Standing 6'2" and weighing 200 pounds, Joseph Walker was remarkably handsome, but it was his kindness, modesty, courtesy, elegance, and wilderness skills that gained him his reputation.

Joe was a peacemaker who lived with Indians and had the rapport to address any injustice he saw between the white man and the Indian.

In describing Walker, historian John McBride said, "His dress was a marvel of adaption to his business - rich and simple, buckskin throughout.  A loose fitting coat and pants, richly ornamented with threads of silver and gold wire made by hand, a broad sombrero to keep off the sun.  Mounted on a noble looking roan horse of Spanish blood, on a Mexican saddle, with spurs whose rowels were 6" in diameter of polished steel plated with gold at his heels, with a rifle across his saddle bow...he seemed born to rule the wild spirits around him without effort and they acknowledged him as their leader without controversy."

Walker never publish his memoirs or commented in interviews, and although he did keep an exact journal for some years, he lived a decent, principled life which only men of great strength and confidence can sustain.  Walker had a distaste for what we now call "tabloid or sensational journalism"

Next time - back to the 1700s West Virginia where it all began...

Before the Pioneers Came...

Let's go back in time now to long before the Homesteaders, the Cattlemen or the Gold Rushers came west - and meet the mountain men and the trail blazers of the West, the "real pioneers" as some have called them, the rugged men like Jedediah Smith, Kit Carson, Jim Bridger and Joseph Walker.  They were the hunters, fur trappers and traders in a west dominated by Native Americans and the raw, untouched and uncivilized territory of the early 1800s.

Before we set off with Joe Walker who is probably the greatest and least known of these mountain men, a bit of background would be helpful...

One historian has divided those operating in the continental stage into four groups:

1.  The American Fur Company (John Jacob Astor)

2.  The Rocky Mountain Fur Company

3.  The Hudson Bay Company (British) which later merged with the Northwest Company

The independent men also worked with or against any of the above, shifting their allegiance as long as the fur trade lasted.  These men lived off the land, trapping and hunting, without a permanent shelter, ready food, or civilization nearby.  In the true sense of the word, they opened the West to those who followed.  Next time we will take a look at a couple of popular mountain men and their lives.