Walker Baylor I | |
---|---|
Born | 1762 Colony of Virginia |
Died | 1822 (aged 59–60) Kentucky, US |
Service | Continental Army |
Rank | Captain |
Unit | 3rd Continental Light Dragoons |
Commands | Commander-in-Chief's Guard |
Battles / wars |
Walker Baylor I (1762–1822) was an American patriot and an officer in the Continental Army. He rose to the rank of Captain of the 3rd Continental Light Dragoons.[1]
Life
editWalker Baylor I was the fourth son of Colonel John Baylor III of Caroline County, Virginia, by his wife Fanny or Frances (Lucy) Walker.[2][3]
Baylor entered the revolutionary army before he was seventeen years of age.[4] He was made Lieutenant, 3rd Light Dragoons, on June 28, 1777, was promoted to Captain of the same regiment in February 1780, and resigned on July 10, 1780.[2] Some sources say he achieved the rank of Major.[1][4] He commanded the Life Guard of Washington at the battle of Germantown,[5][6] and there, or perhaps at Brandywine, he was severely wounded by a spent cannonball, which crushed his instep, disabling him.[2][4] He resigned his commission in 1783.[7] He seems to have incurred his father’s displeasure, and is not mentioned in his will.[8]
He later settled in the Kentucky, and, representing Lincoln county, he was one of the members of the convention in 1787, held in Danville.[9] He was also one of the first trustees of the new town of Stanford.[10] He published an announcement in the issue of the Kentucky Gazette dated January 9, 1796 of the "opening of a house of Entertainment for gentlemen at the house lately Taylor's tavern. A few genteel boarders will be accepted, with special attention given to horses."[11] Early in 1797 the Gazette announced Baylor's appointment as a Justice of the Peace by the Governor.[12]
On the night of January 31, 1803, the building in Lexington containing the records of Fayette county was destroyed by fire, and Baylor was one of the nine commissioners,[a] appointed by Governor Garrard, "with full powers and authority, to meet at some convenient place, and adjourn from time to time, as they shall think fit, and to summons, hear, and examine witnesses, at the instance of any person who has been or may be injured by the destruction of the records of county courts", and who had the fragments of the partially-burned books copied.[7][13]
He was also appointed by the state of Kentucky one of the electors of president and vice-president of the United States, for the seventh term, from March 4, 1813.[14] The electors from Kentucky all voted for Madison and Gerry.[14] He died in Bourbon county, Kentucky in 1822; the news was announced in the Kentucky Gazette on October 14, 1822, with an account of his Revolutionary War services in command of a troop of cavalry.[11]
In May 1928, during the second national reunion of Baylor and allied families of the United States, the remains of Baylor and his wife were taken from resting places near Paris, Kentucky, and reinterred in the cemetery in Frankfort.[15]
Personal life
editHe married Jane, daughter of Joseph Bledsoe, of Virginia, and sister of Jesse Bledsoe, a lawyer and United States Senator from Kentucky in 1813 and 1815; her sister, Margaret Bledsoe, was the great-grandmother of Horace Chilton, U.S. Senator from Texas.[2][5] Of their twelve children, Robert Emmet Bledsoe was a co-founder of Baylor University.[2]
Likenesses
editIn 1914, Frances Courtenay Baylor, a descendant, owned a portrait of Walker Baylor, in the uniform of the Guard de Corp.[16] She had it painted in Philadelphia some years prior, from a miniature.[16] Orval Walker and Henry Bedinger Baylor remark, "It is a handsome boyish face, he being only seventeen years of age when he carried the colors, and was wounded with them in his hand, at Germantown."[16]
See also
editNotes
editReferences
edit- ^ a b The Portal to Texas History.
- ^ a b c d e Baylor; Baylor, eds. 1914, pp. 26.
- ^ Hannings 2009, p. 42.
- ^ a b c Poultney Gazette, p. 3.
- ^ a b Smith 1886, p. 69.
- ^ Wingfield 1924, p. 369.
- ^ a b c Collins; Collins 1874, ii. p. 173.
- ^ Baylor 1900, p. 402.
- ^ Collins 1847, p. 146.
- ^ Leach 1992, p. 846.
- ^ a b Staples 1939, p. 113.
- ^ Staples 1939, p. 131.
- ^ Ranck 1872, p. 72.
- ^ a b Allen 1872, p. 164.
- ^ The Courier-Journal, p. 21.
- ^ a b c Baylor; Baylor, eds. 1914, p. 2.
Sources
edit- Allen, William B. (1872). A History of Kentucky. Louisville, KY: Bradley & Gilbert. p. 164.
- Baylor, George (1900). Bull Run to Bull Run; or, Four Years in the Army of Northern Virginia. Richmond, VA: B. F. Johnson. pp. 401–402.
- Baylor, Orval Walker; Baylor, Henry Bedinger, eds. (1914). Baylor's History of the Baylors. LeRoy Journal Printing Company. pp. 2, 26–29.
- Collins, Lewis (1847). Historical Sketches of Kentucky. Maysville, KY: Lewis Collins; Cincinnati, OH: J. A. & U. P. James. p. 146.
- Collins, Lewis; Collins, Richard H. (1874). Collins' History of Kentucky. Vol. 2. Covington, KY: Collins & Co. p. 173.
- Leach, Allan (1992). "Stanford". In Kleber, John E. (ed.). The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky. p. 846.
- Ranck, George W. (1872). History of Lexington, Kentucky. Cincinnati: MN: Robert Clarke & Co. p. 72.
- Smith, William R., Sr. (1889). Reminiscences of a Long Life: Historical, Political, Personal and Literary. Vol. 1. Washington, D.C. p. 69.
- Staples, Charles R. (1939). The History of Pioneer Lexington, 1779–1806. Lexington, KY: Lexington-Fayette County Historic Commission. pp. 113, 118, 120, 131, 134, 143, 172, 178, 183, 191, 204, 207.
- Wingfield, Marshall (1924). A History of Caroline County, Virginia. Richmond, VA. Trevvet Christian & Co., Inc. p. 369.
- "Baylor, Allied Families of America To Hold Reunion At Shelbyville". The Courier-Journal. May 27, 1928. p. 21.
- "Died". Poultney Gazette (Northern Spectator). December 3, 1822. p. 3.
- "Walker Baylor, 1762–1822". The Portal to Texas History. Retrieved March 24, 2023.
Further reading
edit- Baylor, Orval Walker (1942). Early Times in Washington County, Kentucky. Cynthiana, KY: Hobson Press.
- Brockman, William Everett (1952). The Brockman Scrapbook. Minneapolis, MN: William Everett Brockman, Midland National Bank. p. 102.
- Clift, G. Glenn, ed. (1977). Kentucky Obituaries, 1787–1854. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. p. 29.
- Maurer, C. F. William (2005). Dragoon Diary: The History of the Third Continental Light Dragoons. AuthorHouse. pp. 58, 65, 191, 212, 237, 261.
- Morton, W. S. (October 1935). "List of Pensioners in Virginia for the Year 1786". The William and Mary Quarterly, 15(4). pp. 395–396.
- Hunt, Gaillard, ed. (1910). Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789. Vol. 17. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. p. 596.
- Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1781–1786. Richmond, VA: Thomas W. White, 1828. pp. 17, 19, 37.
- "George Wythe Baylor's Bible". Notes and Queries. October 1925. pp. 404–405.
- "The Baylor Family". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 6(2). October 1898. pp. 197–199.
- "The Baylor Family (Continued)". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 6(3). January 1899. pp. 307–309.
- "The Will of John Baylor of New Market". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 24(4). 1916. pp. 367–373.
- "X53 Walker Baylor". Southern Campaign American Revolution Pension Statements & Rosters. Retrieved March 24, 2023.