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Explorer, Statesman,
Surveyor & Physician While Daniel Boone is the name most associated with Cumberland Gap, it was Dr. Thomas Walker who first recorded the existence of the Gap. Although a man of great achievements, the details of Walker's life are relatively unknown. Walker was born on January 25, 1715 in King and Queen County, Virginia, to Thomas and Susan Preachy Walker. Walker's ancestors came to America in 1650 from Staffordshire, England, and settled in Tidewater, Virginia, where the family prospered as respectable plantation owners. |
| Thomas was educated at the College of William
and Mary and then studied medicine under his brother-in-law, Dr. George
Gilmer of Williamsburg, a medical graduate of Edinburgh University. In
1741, he married Mildred Thornton Meriwether, widow of Nicholas Meriwether.
Mildred was also a second cousin to George Washington. Walker erected
their home, Castle Hill, on Mildred's 15,000-acre estate in Albemarle
County, east of Charlottesville. The couple had 12 children.
Walker was physician to Thomas Jefferson's father, Peter. After Peter's death, Walker became Thomas Jefferson's guardian. Peter Jefferson, like many of the wealthy Virginia gentlemen of the time, had spent much of his life exploring and surveying. It was perhaps through this long association with the elder Jefferson that Thomas Walker acquired his love for exploration, a fondness that he shared with the young Thomas Jefferson. Walker developed great skill and reputation as an explorer
and surveyor and in 1743 led an expedition as far west as present-day
Kingsport, Tennessee. In March 1750, he led another expedition through
present-day Kentucky that lasted four months. Click
here to see the path of the expedition. It was during this expedition
that Walker discovered Cumberland Gap and recorded its existence in
his April 13th diary entry: |
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| "We went four miles to large Creek, which we called Cedar (Indian) Creek, being a branch of Bear Grass (Powell's), and from thence six miles to Cave Gap (Cumberland Gap), the land being levil [sic]. On the north side of the gap is a large Spring, which falls very fast, and just above the Spring is a small entrance to a large Cave (Cudjo Cavern), which | 
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| the Spring runs through, and there is
a constant Stream of cool air issuing out. The Spring is sufficient to
turn Mill. Just at the foot of the Hill is a Laurel Thicket, and the Spring
Water runs through it. On the South side is a plain Indian Road… This
Gap may be seen at a considerable distance, and there is no other, that
I know of, except one about two miles to the North of it, which does not
appear to be so low as the other."
Throughout his life, Walker continued to act as surveyor and land agent and was active in civil affairs as treaty commissioner, member of the House of Burgesses and General Assembly, delegate to the Revolutionary Convention and a member of the Committee of Public Safety. In 1791, Walker's son Francis wrote a letter to a friend, describing his father's attributes: "(He) possesses all that life and good humor which we were all kept alive by in the woods." Thomas Anbury, author of "Travels Through the Interior Parts of America," also commented on Walker's character when he wrote: "One day, in a chat, while each was delivering his sentiments of what would be the state of America a century hence, the old man [Walker], with great fire and spirit, declared his opinion that, 'The Americans would then reverence the resolution of their forefathers, and would eagerly impress an adequate idea of the sacred value of freedom in the minds of their children, that if, in any future ages they should be again called forth to revenge public injuries, to secure that freedom, they should adopt the same measures that secured it to their brave ancestors.'" "Life and good humor" and "fire and spirit" were certainly Walker's mottoes throughout his life. He died at his home Nomvember 9, 1794. |
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