Big Will Walker’s House

                Big Will Walker’s house was a three room log house with two large rooms and a side room used as a bedroom.  A big fireplace heated the house and the cooking was done on a cook stove.  The household furnishings were either carried in or brought by sled.  This house burned after many years of occupancy and was replaced by the present building.  There were three children born to Will and Nancy, John Frank, Mrs. John (Jane) Stinnett and Beth, the youngest who died in Eastern State Hospital.  Jane was the first person to be buried in Walker’s Valley Cemetery.

                The one room school house stood about twenty feet out from the cemetery.  It was equipped with long benches seating four pupils to a bench.  The house could accommodate about twenty people.  Those teaching here were Doca Stinnett (Walker’s daughter by one of the common-law-wives), Miss Tipton, and Hester McCampbell.

                Many stands of bees were up at the Blowdown.  The Blowdown got its name as the result of a real hard windstorm that came about 1900 or 1901 and blew down a large number of huge poplar trees. All these trees were blown down in one direction and gave a very void appearance.  Jake Dorsey passed by a short time after the storm and looking from a distance reported that a large portion of the earth had fallen in and left a tremendous hole in the ground.  Then on investigation, it was discovered that it was only these fallen trees that gave the sunken appearance.  There were five apple orchards over to the left quite a distance away.

                Rails that fenced a large portion of this land were split rails from Chestnut trees.  No particular length was made.  It all depended on the length of the logs.

                There was no Grist Mill in the Spruce Flats, although there was one where the branches emptied into Laurel Creek.  Both of these steams gave enough water power to turn a mill wheel.  This was down near the George Seaton place.

By:  Lula Gregory Flynn