Note 18 — CHRONICLES OF BORDER WARFARE (continued 2)

The first name of Walden was not Thomas––Elisha Walden was his proper name. He was a son-in-law of William Blevins, and both Walden and Blevins lived, in 1774, at the “Round-About” on Smith’s River, two miles east of what is now Martinsville, Henry county, Virginia. He was then about forty years of age, nearly six feet in height, a rough frontiersman, and a noted hunter. He and several others, in 1761, penetrated into Powell’s Valley, naming Walden’s Mountain and Walden’s Creek, and proceeded on through Cumberland Gap to Cumberland River, and a few miles beyond to the Laurel Mountain, where meeting a party of Indians, they returned. In subsequent years, Walden settled on Holston, about eighteen miles above Knoxville, where he was residing in 1796; a few years later, he removed to Powell’s Valley, but soon after migrated to Missouri, where he lived hunting up to extreme old age. Save what is related from Haywood’s Hist. of Tennessee about the trip of 1761, this information was communicated to the writer in 1849, by Maj. John Redd, of Henry county, Va., who personally knew the old hunter very well.––L. C. D.