Pension Application of Henry Walker: S31459

                        Transcribed and annotated by C. Leon Harris

 

State of Illinois

Fayette County Ss

            Be it remembered that on this third day of September Eighteen hundred and thirty two personally appeared before the County Commissioner Court of the County of Fayette now sitting the same being a Court of Record, Henry Walker Senior, a resident of the County of Fayette and State of Illinois aged Seventy four years on the Eighth day of October next who being first duly sworn according to Law, doth on his oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the Act of Congress passed June 7, 1832.

            That he was born according to the best of his knowledge at Prince Edward County in the State of Virginia on the Eighth day of October 1758, but has no record of his age. That he entered the service of the United States under the following named officers and served as herein stated. About two years before the battle of King’s Mountain [7 Oct 1780] on the Seventh of March, but cannot remember the year, he then living in Montgomery County Virginia, he volunteered as a Spy in Capt. George Parry’s [sic: Pearis’s] company of Militia, in Col. Wm Preston’s regiment, which company was raised in Wythe [formed from Montgomery in 1789] or Montgomery County in the State of Virginia. The Company was that year employed in the Spy Service on the waters of New River in the State of Virginia, and between that river and Clinch river in said state and also upon the waters of Guyandotte [now in West Virginia] – that he continued in said Company in the service aforesaid from the time aforesaid 7th March to October or November of the same year. The next year, in February or March, he was employed in the same service and upon pretty much the same ground, as a member of Capt. Frederick Edward’s Company, in Col. Preston’s regiment, and continued in the same service, until some time in the month of October following. In the following year, as near as the deponent can recollect, in August or September, he joined Capt. George Parry’s Company, in the regiment aforesaid, and rendezvoused at Chisels Mines [sic: the lead mines at Fort Chiswell, present Wythe County VA] on New River in said State and then moved to Wallings Bottoms up New River, and from that place to or near the Mulberry Fields [present Wilkesboro] in North Carolina, where, on hearing that [Major Patrick] Ferguson was embodied on Kings Mountain, the regiment was divided, and a part sent against Ferguson and the other to go against the Tories embodied at the Moravian Towns [at present Winston Salem NC] – among the latter was this deponent. That he met the Tories at the Shallow Ford of the Yadkin river and had a battle [14 Oct 1780] in which the Tories were defeated, and made their escape. In the battle Capt. Parris was wounded and carried to Hoozer Town, where this Deponent staid until December, detailed to guard and take care of the wounded. The next February or March, he volunteered in Capt Henry Pattons Company, under the command of Col. Preston and marched immediately to the Moravian Towns, and thence down to the Reedy Fork of Haw River, where he had a battle with the British, which battle was called the battle of Whitesells Mills on the Reedy Fork of Haw River [sic: skirmish at Wetzel’s Mill NC, 6 March 1781]; our troops being beaten he retreated and rendezvoused at Guilford C. House N.C. and from thence marched and joined Gen’l. [Nathanael] Greene at the Iron works, which was in May or June of the same year [sic: see note below], when he was discharged and returned home. He never obtained a written discharge. He knows of no one living, by whom he can prove any of the services enumerated, unless some of his old friends may yet be living in the State of Virginia, from whom he has not heard for five and twenty or thirty years – and unless a brother which ten or eleven years ago resided in Kentucky, (but whether now living, or where, this Deponent cannot say) may have some rememberance of some of said services. That the Rev. Charles Radcliffe and Robert K. McLaughin [sic: McLaughlin] have known him for many years, and can testify to his character for veracity, and their belief of his services as a soldier of the Revolution. He hereby relinquishes every claim whatever to a pension or annuity except the present, and declares that his name is not on the pension roll of the agency of any state.

            And this deponent further says that since his service aforesaid he has resided in the State of Virginia, about seven or eight years in Kentucky and for the last twenty eight or twenty nine years in the State of Illinois. And further saith not.         Singed Henry Walker.

 

NOTES:

            Walker was in error in saying that in May or June of 1781 he joined Greene at Troublesome Ironworks (also called Speedwell Furnace, on Reedy Fork about 16 miles from Guilford Court House). In April Greene left his camp at the iron works to begin his campaign in South Carolina. William Preston’s Montgomery-County militia company was at the Battle of Guilford Court House on 15 March, but Walker does not mention having been present.

            A typed summary in the file gives the date of death as 30 Sep 1832.