Tandy Walker - Early 1830s Grimes League Holder

Jared E. Groce and Jesse Grimes are early Grimes County historic names local residents recognize, but how many recall the name of Tandy Walker?

The Montgomery County History book claims that “Walker came to Texas in 1828 and settled on a league of land about four miles west of Jesse Grimes and halfway between Navasota and Yarboro. Walker and Grimes both resided earlier at St. Stephens, the old territorial capitol of Alabama.”

A league of what in 1846 became Grimes County land was granted to Tandy Walker and his wife Mary Mays (Mayes) dated April 27, 1831, thus the Tandy Walker Survey on the county’s property map. This survey is located just southeast of the Navasota city limits - east of Highway 6. Walker, at the time of his land application in 1830, was 66 years of age and his wife, Mary 55. The Walkers arrived with two sons, Tandy H. and John C., and six slaves having left two grown daughters in Alabama. Son Tandy H. was later granted a “league and one labor” of land on Feb. 1, 1836.

Tandy, a descendant of Scottish immigrants, was born in Virginia about 1764. In 1800 this area of Virginia was Indian frontier known as Tombigbee country guarded by military posts as white pioneer families inched westward. Tandy was the government blacksmith at the St. Stephens Army Post. He became an invaluable interpreter between the Indians and the new settlers and was labeled a hero when he successfully rescued a white woman captured by Indians about to be burned at the stake near now Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Tandy acted on his own as a land agent making trips back and forth from Texas to Alabama encouraging and luring families to relocate here. He often accompanied a family back to near his land grant and reportedly collected a $25 fee according to the Grimes County History Book accredited to the University of Texas Crittenden papers (Page 13 of the Grimes County Heritage and Progress book). Among well-known such families were: White, Womack, Stoneham, McGinty, Jones, Forester, Easley, Devereaux and Baker.

Grimes County records indicate Tandy deeded property to his sons Tandy H. and John C. Walker on June 1, 1844. He then returned to Alabama where he died about 1845 and was buried at a place called Walkers Prairie near Newbern, Alabama.

A now isolated Grimes County cemetery known as the Walker-Cox-Somerford is located on the Tandy Walker Survey in a pasture a short distance southeast of Navasota just north of the Bovay Scout Ranch. This burial ground of about 50 people, shrouded by a grove of large trees on top of a hill and protected by a barbed wire fence, is hard to access. It holds the body of Tandy’s son, Tandy H., who was born in 1803 and died here in 1848. Also buried there is Tandy H’s son, John Grimes Walker, who was born to he and his wife Delilah Armour Walker in April 1846 and lived to February 1928. (Delilah was the daughter of Robert Armour who was also an early Grimes county league grantee). John Grimes Walker’s wife, Elizabeth Bullock Walker, born July 1851, had died in July 1917 and is also buried in this cemetery. A dual stone marks their graves. This cemetery has also been known as the Bullock/ Kennard. This is a mixed racial cemetery.

Early settler Henry W. Somerford and his wife Emma Drew Somerford and family members are also buried in the Walker-Cox-Somerford cemetery. To see others buried in this cemetery go to www.findagrave.com.

Written by Betty Dunn, Two Rivers Heritage Foundation. See www.tworiversheritagefoundation.org for more info and membership.