This morning was Walker morning. Here is what we knew before we set out on our drive - much of this learned only in the past couple of days at the Archives and Library here in Dumfries.
Katherine's mother was a Walker. Her great-great grandparents, Edward Walker and Janet Welsh, emigrated from Dumfries-shire in the 1820's and settled in New Brunswick with their young family. Edward and Janet had married in 1813 in Troqueer, Kirkcudbright, just across the river from Dumfries. We started our day at the Troqueer Parish Church.
The minister walked by as we were reading the tombstones, and he said we were welcome to look around inside as the service was still about 45 minutes away.
Katherine talking with the minister
Here is the baptismal font where Edward Walker and Janet Welsh had all their children baptized before they left for Canada:
The font has a silver bowl, a gift from the Norwegian army who were billeted in Troqueer in WWII - we thought this was a strange coincidence since this time last week we were still in Norway.
Edward Walker was the son of David Walker and Helen Milligan who also married in Troqueer, in 1787. But Edward Walker was baptized in Holywood, so that was on our list of places to visit. In fact the Walker family had deep connections with the Holywood area.
Edward's father David Walker was baptized in Holywood in 1753, the son of David Walker and Agnes Thomson. This David Walker also had a sister Grizel Walker baptized in 1770 - she became important today in helping us with our search.
Edward's grandfather, also called David Walker (of course!), was baptized in Holywood in 1728, the son of William Walker and an as-yet unknown mother.
So... off we went to Holywood, and here is the Holywood church cemetery with a very neat "stile" that we had to clamber over:
And here is the gravestone we found there:
In Memory of
DAVID WALKER who died in
Formarkland May 10th 1775.
Also Grizel Walker his Daughter
who died at Albany place the 12th
Febry 1837 aged 67 years
So...there we were standing at the graveside of Katherine's 4th great-grandfather. We had seen a transcription of this Monumental Inscription at the Library yesterday, but now we were seeing the real thing.
Here is the Holywood Parish Church where so many Walker events occurred:
Next we went to a place called Chapman Thorn which was the hamlet where Edward Walker was born. (Aside to Katherine's family: Katherine took lots more pictures than I did, which you will see when she gets home!)
And then we went looking for Formarkland where David Walker had died in 1775. There is still a farm at Formarkland, and a house which looked very old indeed. Perhaps it wasn't the same house that David died in, but it was the same place - Katherine took a picture of its sign.
Unfortunately no one was at home. I hope they didn't mind us trespassing. Katherine did speak politely to their cows:
We also visited the Dunscore Parish Church where Agnes Thomson was from:
And that was our Walker morning - full of wonderful successes in seeing where Katherine's Walker ancestors lived. And just to summarize, since I know it is hard to follow:
William Walker born about 1700 was the father of
David Walker, born in 1728, married to Agnes Thomson 1753, and died 1775, was the father of
David Walker born 1753, married to Helen Milligan 1787, was the father of
Edward Walker born 1790, married to Janet Welsh 1813, died New Brunswick 1863, was the father of
David Walker born about 1831 in New Brunswick, married to Elizabeth Dixon 1857 in Richibucto, died 1898 in Minneapolis, was the father of
Oswald Smith Walker born 1865 in Richibucto, married to Ellen Kauth 1898 in Minneapolis, died 1923 in Grand Forks, British Columbia, was the father of
Katherine's mother.
Then we had a very boring lunch at a place that had run out of ice cubes for our drinks because it has been so unusually hot for Scotland - well over 20C today - but it fueled us.
This afternoon we switched gears and went to places from the Elizabeth Dixon side of Katherine's family. Let me go backwards in time from Elizabeth:
Elizabeth Dixon was the daughter of
Andrew Dixon who was born in Kirkpatrick-Fleming in 1803, married in Richibucto in 1830, and died in 1876. He was the son of
Robert Dixon of Plumpe Farm, Cumbria, England, and Jannet Wishart of Springfield, Gretna, Scotland who married in Gretna Parish Church in 1798. They married in the actual Church of Scotland in Gretna, and not the Blacksmith's place at Gretna Green where runaways eloped to from England. All these other Dixon places are within about 10 miles of each other and of Gretna Green, so yes we did the tourist thing too.
The Gretna Parish Church where Robert and Jannet married:
The blacksmith's Gretna:
The church at Kirkpatrick-Fleming where Andrew Dixon was baptized:
And then we drove through Springfield (Jannet Wishart) over the border about a mile into England to Plumpe farm (Robert Dixon). Katherine had a great talk with the current owner of Plumpe Farm and has pictures of both it and of Springfield.
By then it was about 7pm and we were zonked. Fortunately despite all this driving we were only about 35 miles from our B&B in Dumfries, so we were home again in next to no time at all.
All in all, a really good day.
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