Other names:
Col. John Walker's Plantation

What:
Col. John Walker's plantation, campsite for both sides at Kings Mountain, Sept/Oct 1780

Where: 35.42595, -81.88303 Walker Plantation

Maps: [map notes]

• 35.42595, -81.88303 Walker Plantation, arbitrarily selected by JR (see map snippet below). Shown as "WP(JR)"
• ACME Mapper.
• National Map
• Google
  
• Confidence: 4

• 35.41934,-81.8789 Walker Plantation, selected by NF per CB, shown as "WP"
• ACME Mapper.
• National Map
• Google
  
• Confidence: 2

• 35.430125,-81.880402 Walker Plantation, conjectural by JR based on Draper. Shown as "WP(LCD)"
• ACME Mapper.
• National Map
• Google
  
• The Walker Pl location conjectured from description by Draper is 0.8 mi. from the mouth of Cane Creek and is 1.5 mi. from Brittain Church.
• Confidence: 2

• 35.43088,-81.89552 Walker Plantation historical marker described by Barefoot, 1990 (not found 2010)
• ACME Mapper.
• National Map
• Google
  
• Confidence: 0 for marker

• 35.41927,-81.87498 Walker Plantation historical marker (found 2010)
• ACME Mapper.
• National Map
• Google
  
• Confidence: 5 for marker

• 35.405,-81.942 Gilbert Town
• ACME Mapper.
• National Map
• Google
  
• Confidence: 5

• 35.4534574,-81.8859348 Brittain Church
• ACME Mapper.
• National Map
• Google
  
• Confidence: 5

• 35.4248455,-81.8934355 Cane Creek, mouth
• ACME Mapper.
• National Map
• Google
  
• Confidence: 5

• 35.35983,-81.95892 James Adaire's Plantation
• ACME Mapper.
• National Map
• Google
  
• Basis: location of modern McMahan Funeral Home.
• Confidence: ?

• Estimated location of Walker's property:
  
  Walker's property is described as 400 acres. Other property of this acreage, in this region, in this time period were not uncommonly a mile long along a creek and about 0.6 miles wide, providing maximum "bottom land" for farming. Alternately, it could have been about 0.8 miles square.

  Assumptions: Two of the boundaries would have been the Second Broad River and Cane Creek, 400 acre tract, magenta = 1 mi. by 0.625 mi., green = 0.825 mi. x 0.825 mi. House would have been on higher evevation for security and to avoid flood plain. Blue dot is estimated location of house until better information is available.

• Custom Google map showing all above locations.

Sources:

• Barefoot, Daniel, Touring North Carolina's Revolutionary War Sites, p.233, 1990.

  From the [Brittain] church, proceed south on U.S. 64 for 1.9 miles the historical marker for Colonel John Walker, located on the left just north of the bridge over the Second Broad River.

• The Walker Plantation historical marker described by Daniel Barefoot in 1990 can no longer be found. It may well have been relocated to the position where such a marker was found.

  

  This marker is not found in the database of NC Highway Historical Marker Program.
  This marker is not found in the database of the Historical Marker Database.

• Nancy Ellen Ferguson, Rutherford County Historian, February 1990

  Gilbert Town, served as the first county seat from 1779 to 1787. It was named for William Gilbert. The people complained about the muddy condition around the courthouse and Gilbert Town. This mud made it difficult for them to reach the courthouse. Although the courthouse was at Gilbert Town, the first county court session to be held in Rutherford County was in the home of Colonel John Walker on Cain Creek.

• Draper, Lyman Coleman, Kings Mountain And Its Heroes

  During Wednesday, the eleventh, the army marched twelve miles, and encamped at Colonel John Walker's, according to Allaire's Diary. Colonel Walker, one of the prominent Whig leaders of the country, resided some five miles north-east of Gilbert Town, on the east side of Cane creek, half a mile above its mouth, and a mile below the present Brittain church.
  ...
  Colonel Walker was born on Bohemia Creek, New Castle County, Delaware, in 1728. When grown, he settled on the South Branch of Potomac. Hampshire County. Virginia. where he married Elizabeth Watson, He served as a volunteer under Colonel Washington, and shared in Braddock's disastrous defeat in 1755. He shortly after removed to North Carolina, settling first on Leeper'.s Creek, in now Lincoln County, and served on Colonel Grant's campaign against the Cherokees in 1761. He subsequently located on Crowder's Creek ; and, in 1768, at the mouth of Cane Creek, where he purchased a fine tract of four hundred acres for a doubloon. He was a man of marked character and prominence, holding several commissions under the Colonial Government—Colonel Commandant of Tryon County, and Judge of the Court for many years. On the breaking out of the Revolution, sharing in the sympathies of the people, he resigned his Loyal offices, and was among the foremost in signing the Articles of Association, pledging resistance to British encroachments. in August. 1775; and. the same month, served as a member of the Convention at Hillsboro. His sons took an active part in the war, one of whom, Felix Walker, represented Rutherford County seven years in the House of Commons, and six in Congress. Colonel Walker, in 1787. removed to the mouth of Green river, in Rutherford County, where he died January 25th. 1796, in his sixty-eighth year.

• The location as described by Draper is not possible. A conjectural position approximating it has been attempted.

• Allaire, Anthony, Diary, Kings Mountain And Its Heroes, p.484-515.

  Wednesday, 13th [September, 1780, enroute to Pleasant Gardens & Davidson's]. Got in motion about eight o'clock in the morning and continued countermarching to a Rebel Col. Walker's plantation where we met Capt. Ryerson and Lieut. Fletcher with the remainder of the American Volunteers and militia. Here we took up our ground, very much fatigued with our enterprise.

  Thursday, 14th. Lay still at Col. Walker's. The poor, deluded people of this Province begin to be sensible of their error, and come in very fast. Maj. Ferguson, with thirty American Volunteers, and three hundred militia, got in motion at six o'clock, and marched to the head of Cane creek, and halted at one Wilson's.

  Friday, 15th. Capt. DePeyster and I, who remained at Col. Walker's with the remainder of the American Volunteers and militia, got in motion at six o'clock in the morning, and marched twelve miles to one Bowman's, near the head of Cane creek, and halted. This creek is so amazingly crooked that we were obliged to cross it nineteen times in marching four miles.

  ...

  Friday, 22d. [Return from Davidsons (Modern Old Fort) with wagons via White House -JR] Got in motion at five o'clock in the morning; marched five miles to Col. Walker's plantation, and halted.

  Saturday, 23d. Got in motion at nine o'clock in the morning; marched three miles to Gilbert Town [?]; took up our ground on a height about half a mile from the town. This town contains one dwelling house, one barn, a blacksmith's shop, and some out-houses.

  ...

  Wednesday, 11th [October 1780, as prisoner]. Moved at eight o'clock in the morning; marched twelve miles to Col. Walker's and halted.

• Alexander Chesney, journal

  ...on this occasion I commanded a division, [September, 1780] and took the person prisoner who was keeper of the records of the county which I sent to my father's as a place of safety. We then fortified Colonel Walker's house as a protection to the wounded, and proceeded in pursuit of the Rebels to the mountains at the head of Cataba-River sending out detachments to scour the country and search the Caves;...

• Uzal Johnson, Uzal Johnson, Loyalist Surgeon, A Revolutionary War Diary, Bobby Gilmer Moss, ed., Scotia Hibernia Press, 2000.

  [p. 64] ...continued our March ten Miles to James Adaire's Plantation. [Footnote 241: "...site of Mottan(McMahan?) Funeral Home."]
  ...
  We then Marched four Miles [?] to Col. Walkers...
  [p. 66] Capt. Chitwood and twenty Militia were left as a Guard for Capt. Dunlap and I at Col. Walker's House. They put Abbitees [sic] and built a Worm Fence around the House and put [the house] in proper order to fight out of in case of an attack upon us.

  Note: Either the location of Adaire's Pl is incorrect or the distance from there to Walker's Pl is incorrect.
  Description of abattis (abatis).

• Cyan line is the route taken by the Overmountain Men enroute to Kings Mountain per studies conducted on behalf of the NPS over a number of years. It is described in several of the journals mentioned above. Walker's house would have been along this route and no great distance from it.
  

• RevWar75  
  Not found.

Related locations:
[Can you provide names of other actions related by proximity or other?]
Gilbert Town,   Biggerstaff's,  

Confidence level:: 4