WILLIAM  "BILL" WALKER

WORSHIPFUL MASTER

SPRING HILL MASONIC LODGE

1872 & 1876 & 1877

 

William M Walker 1825-1882 ..was born in Marion Co. southwest of Columbus, Georgia, a son of William and Elizabeth Walker who had migrated from North Ireland to South Carolina before 1820.   The Walker, Fullerton, and other families migrated from Georgia and Alabama to the Robertson Colony near Fort Franklin in the 1830s and it was there that William Walker married Mary Minerva McCandless, a daughter of David  & Polly Gordon McCandless.    Mary was a sister of Macca Orange McCandless who married Joseph Thompson Lawrence.   David McCandless had assembled 5,000 acres of land on the headwaters of Richland Creek...Liberty Hill area...and moved there in the 1850s with the Walker and Lawrence families.       David McCandless divided his land between the Walkers and the Lawrences and the families prospered.

 

William Waker's sister, Elizabeth Walker, had married young Brit Dawson in 1838 and had died at Franklin in 1847.   Meanwhile, Brit Dawson had remarried and settled along Battle Creek which emptied into Richland Creek.

 

Another, sister, Nancy Walker, married Henry Fullerton.   Their family settled from Franklin to the Liberty Hill area of Western Navarro Co.

 

William and Mary Minerva McCandless Walker had two daughters.

 

Daughter One.....Alice Orange Walker was born about 1850 and married  William G Martin who may have been related to the Savage and Worden families.    William may have come to the area after the Civil War in company of George W Savage.   Children of Alice and William....Homer who was buried at Spring Hill pior to 1870; Robert born before 1868; Berta born 1870; Maud born 1874, and Mary born 1876.   The Martins were living in Dresden in 1880 next to Sarah Berry, a first cousin of Alice Martin.   Sarah Walker had married Josiah Montgomery Berry.

 

The Martin Family left the area after the death of her parents and disappeared.

 

Daughter Two....Mary E Walker c1870 married George M Dallas Berry, a brother of Josiah Montgomery Berry.   They had two sons before her death in 1874.    Sparton Berry was born 1871.   Otho Berry was born in 1872...died in 1884...and was buried at Spring Hill Cemetery next to his Mother.

 

Both boys went to live with their Walker grandparents after the death of their Mother, and, at one point, William Walker sought to gain custody of the two boys.  When the Walker grandparents died, Spart Berry inherited all of the original McCandless land that was due his Mother.    Spart Berry married a niece of one of the first teachers in Dawson, built a home in Dawson, raised a fine family, was active in politics, and died in Dawson in 1939

 

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The Walker and Fullerton Families had lived in the adjoining counties of Down and Armagh, Northern Ireland for many years, but came to America in the early part of the 1800s.   The Fullerton Family had lived earlier in the Londonderry area, and John Fullerton had married Jane Matthews at Armagh in 1773.   

 

John Matthews b.1705....married Ann Archer, daughter of Sampson Archer and migrated c1739 to Augusta Co VA.   Elizabeth Matthews had married Thomas Greene, a first cousin of Gen. Nathaniel Greene and had settled in South Carolina.   George Matthews, son of John and Ann Archer Matthews, served under Gen. Greene, settled in Georgia across the Savannah River from  Thomas Greene and near Augusta, Georgia.  George Matthews, also, participated in the American Revolution, served under Washington and Nathaniel Greene, served three terms as Governor of  Georgia, and when he had a disagreement with President Madison, decided to go to the nation's capital and horse whip the President.  He was on his way from Mississippt to Washington DC when he died in Augusta GA.

 

The Walker and Fullerton Families settled in the South Carolina-Georgia area near Augusta, arriving prior to 1820.   Our William Fullerton b.1774...may have been a child of John and Jane Matthews Fullerton.

 

 

Notes:

• Submitted by Carl W. Matthews - Dec 2004