Jacob Walker (Tennessee)

[Greg C.]

WALKER, JACOB (1799-1836). Jacob Walker, Alamo defender, was born in Rockridge County, Tennessee, in May 1799. In 1827 he married Sara Ann Vauchere, and they had four children. Walker was a resident of Nacogdoches. He took part in the siege of Bexarqv and afterwards remained in Bexar as a member of Capt. William R. Carey'sqv artillery company. Susanna W. Dickinsonqv recalled that, during the siege of the Alamo, Walker often spoke to her about his children. She also recalled that during the battle, Walker rushed into her room pursued by Mexican soldiers who shot and bayonetted him to death as she looked on. Walker was the cousin of fellow Alamo defender Asa Walkerqv and brother of the famous mountain man Joseph R. Walker.

[neferetus]

"One of them was from Nacogdoches and named Walker. He spoke to me several times during the siege about his wife and four children with anxious tenderness. I saw four Mexicans toss him up in the air (as you would a bundle of fodder) with their bayonets, and then shoot him." Susanna Dickinson

[neferetus]

Here is a biography of Jacob Walker and his wife, Sarah Ann, taken from the City of Lacy Lakeview, Texas website:



Jacob Walker ( 1805--1836 )

Jacob Walker was born in Columbia, Tenn. in May of 1805. He later moved to Maury County, Tenn. He came from a very adventuresome family. Sam Houston was his cousin, and one of his brothers was the famous mountain man ( Joseph R. Walker ) who was one of the first guides to California. Joseph Walker has rivers, lakes and mountains named for him. Jacob had another brother named Jack Walker and his fathers name was John Walker.

Jacob Walker moved to Louisiana and met Sarah Ann Vauchere and they were married in November of 1827. They had two children while in Louisiana and Jacob had a farm there. He then moved to Nacogdoches, Texas were they had five more children.

In 1835, Sam Houston stopped in Nacogdoches and persuaded his cousin to join the army because they were giving land to the soldiers. Jacob's first battle was the storming and capture of Bexar, December 5 until December 10, 1835. The siege of Bexar was a crucial event in the history of Texas. It brought Santa Anna at the head of his army to retake San Antonio and Texas, and men indecisive about their future as Mexican citizens or Texans were moved irrevocably to independence.

After the Siege of Bexar, Jacob remained in Bexar as a member of Carey's artillery company. This was his duties during the battle of the Alamo. He was a gunner until the end.

According to Susanna Dickinson, Jacob Walker was the last man to die at the Alamo. Jacob Walker, the gunner from Nacogdoches after there were no more balls left to fire, plugged his cannon with scraps of cast iron and broken pieces of chain and fired at the Mexican soldiers. A Mexican officer trained a force of muskets on them and they became major targets. Jacob Walker, who had remained by his cannon until his wounds kept him from firing his cannon, leaped from the ramp, and dashed to the side of Mrs. Dickinson in one of the chapel side rooms. Within moments, the Mexican soldiers broke through the old doors. The bloody fighting was fierce, but brief. It is beleived that Jacob was attempting to ignite the main powder magazine which would have blown the Alamo to pieces, but because of his injuries crawled to Mrs. Dickenson and begs her to take a message to his wife Anna, he then turned to face the Mexican hordes. Susanna Dickenson said the Mexican soldiers shot and bayoneted him to death as she looked on. The soldiers pitched him around on bayonets, as they would a bail of hay. Susanna was one of a few that was spared during the massacre.

Jacob Walker died on March 6th, 1836 and is considered to be the last man to fall at the Alamo.

Sarah Ann Vauchere Walker ( 1811--1899 )

Born Sarah Ann Vauchere in Louisiana on April 16th, 1811, this future pioneer was the youngest child of the French aristocrat Joseph Vauchere. At the age of sixteen she married a Louisiana landowner named Jacob Walker and two years later moved to East Texas with him. Sarah had seven children--three girls and four boys in the nine years before the Texas Revolution. In 1836, Jacob Walker left his family to defend the Alamo and was, according to one of the survivors, Suzanna Dickenson, the last man to die there. Dickenson said that Jacob had spoken to her several times during the siege "with anxious tenderness" about his wife and his four sons, and at the end she "saw four Mexicans toss him up in the air as you would a bundle of fodder ) with their bayonets, and then shot him." In the dark days when General Sam Houston and a rag-tag band of volunteers were being hectored northward by the forces of Santa Anna, it seemed that any additional difficulty might finish the revolution altogether. The widowed Sarah achieved fame herself when she answered the call for a volunteer at a patriots meeting held in Nacogdoches. The patriots wanted General Sam Houston warned that the Cherokees had been incited by the Mexicans to ambush the Texas army from the rear as it retreated from the forces of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. A tiny woman only four feet eight inches tall and twenty-five years old, Sarah beleived that she could pass through enemy lines disquised as a boy and set off on horseback. She rode for day across a sparsely settled area where hostile Indians hunted, Mexican solders marched, and many other dangers for a lone woman existed. Three hundred miles later, Sarah reached the town of Gonzales, located Houston and his army, and gave him the intelligence that allowed his army to avoid the Cherokees.

Less than a year after her husbands death, Sarah married his cousin Jim Bob Walker. Being widowed on the frontier was a common female experience and, because the majority of the population was male, quickly remarrying was an established custom.

For the valiant sacrifice made by her husband ( Jacob Walker ), a grateful Republic of Texas issued to her Headright Certificate Number One, deeding to her "a league and a labor" ( about 4,416 acres ). The certificate was signed by President David G. Burnet, who held the office of President from March 16th, 1836 to October 22nd, 1836. The certificate did not locate the grant of land until February 1, 1841. Col. Leonard William's, first Indian Commissioner of Texas, located the grant of land for her. The Walker Grant was east of the Brazos River, beginning at a point slightly north of the mouth of the Bosque River and extending past White Rock Creek. The property also stretched east beyond Tehuacana Creek.

Sarah planned to move there from Nacogdoches after the birth of her eight child but delayed because she quickly became pregnant again. The move of the household,slaves, and stock began during this ninth and final pregnancy, and Sarah was determined to have the birth on the Brazos. The baby came earlier, however, and was delivered "somewhere on the Sabine Trail". Before Sarah could establish her family on the new land, her second husband died, and the 1850 Census listed her as "family head, occupation farmer". It was not unusual for survivors in the West to marry three or four times, but Sarah chose not to remarry again.

With considerable temerity Sarah assumed responsibility for settling her newborn infant, a one year old, and her seven older children in the wilderness of Central Texas. She built her log cabin on high ground facing the Brazos River and enjoyed the benefits of fresh water from nearby springs, fertile black soil,and Indian peach trees. With many people looking for land, Sarah lived by selling off parcels of her land grant. Early documents record that she and four of her children sold 130 acres on the Brazos for $ 3,660.00 and that she also leased some of her land and rode horseback to collect rent from her tenants.

Sarah Walker not only endured; she prospered and replaced her cabin with a two story Greek Revival structure with large porches in the front and back. For years hers was the only house north of the Waco Indian Village on the Military Road, and travelers frequently stopped to drink from the cool spring waters and rest their horses. Indians came by also, but did not attack, perhaps because Sarah gave them gifts of food. The two oldest Walker daughters married and left home soon after they moved to the Brazos, and two of the sons and one daughter died before 1855. A third son ( John ) moved into a small cabin away from the family house and lived a secluded life. The 1870 Census listed him as male, thirty-eight years old, with no property of his own, and "an idiot whose privilege to vote had been discontinued." The other three children lived on the Walker plantation until the Civil War, when another son was killed in the Battle of Bull Run and the youngest daughter married.

Sarah Ann Walker continued alone while the Military Road became the old Dallas Highway and the family cemetery behind her house filled with her children. As she aged, she became an increasingly devout Catholic and worshipped regularly at home. As hardy a pioneer as the West had, Sarah witnessed the extension of the frontier into Texas, participated in the Texas Revolution, saw Waco Village born, and almost lived to see the turn of the twentieth century. She died peacefully at home on December 10th, 1899, at the age of eighty-eight. She was buried in the family cemetery behind her house and what is now known as the Walker-Stanfield Cemetery.

Stanfield-Walker Cemetery

The Stanfield-Walker Cemetery is located in the town of Lacy Lakeview, Texas, on the east side of North Lacy Drive on U.S. Hwy 77-81, between Stanfield Drive and Avenue-C . In 1844, when Sarah Walker settled on her Headright Certificate Number One, land that was given to her for compensation for the death of her husband Jacob Walker, who was reported to be the last man killed in the Battle of the Alamo, the cemetery known now as Stanfield-Walker Cemetery was originally the family cemetery for Sarah Walker's family. Sarah Walker was born on April 16, 1811 in Mississippi and died on December 10, 1899. Over the years, not only have the family members of the Walker family been buried there, but also it is reported that there were cowboys buried in the cemetery that died moving cattle up the Chisholm Trail which ran through the Walker land.

Walker 's family cemetery became the Stanfield-Walker Cemetery when Sarah Walker's daughter ( Margaret ) married Francis Stanfield. Margaret Walker was born on July 18, 1832 and died on March 8, 1923 . Francis Stanfield was born in 1847 and died in 1869 . He was probably killed by outlaws, as the LaVega grant to the south of the Jacob Walker grant was a "no-mans land" and a notorious hideout for criminals. Family members from both the Walker and Stanfield families are buried in the cemetery.

Jim Bob Walker's grave is the oldest grave in the cemetery and is walled in with native sandstone blocks. The marker shows he died in 1850. Their are two unmarked stones, very old native sandstone, which are probably some of the "Walker" descendants. Ada Stanfield was first Stanfield to be buried in the Stanfield-Walker Cemetery. She was the daughter of Margaret ( Walker ) Stanfield. Ada Stanfield was born on January 23, 1875 and died on July 23, 1876 .

[Greg C.]

There are so many accounts of different people being picked up by bayonets and tossed in the air. One of them is Bowie, on Madame Candelaria's account...