WALKER'S CHAPEL written March 11, 1965 by Albert H. HILL
Around 1814, the Hintons, Harrises and Popes built the Old Buck Creek Church, and about that time another great pioneer familiy of Walkers located at another big spring of running water near where Old Chapel church now stands. Thus in 1820, the man who was afterwards called "Uncle Billy Walker," with a few of his scattered neighbors, erected a little log church, facing north, and this place where they might worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience, was named in honor of its founders "Walkers Chapel". Among the old settlers who once worshipped there were: Robert, John, and Bill HARRIS; Billy LYLES and Henry KELLEY, sons-in-law of the said Uncle Billy Walker, whose sons were Butler and Alex: Billy HINTON whose sons were Edgar, Roy, Emmett and Toy, and daughters, Effie and Winnie Belle; Younger GRAVES whose sons were Pelley and Lattie; George OGLES whose sons were Homer and Herman; Andy KILLMAN whose sons were Ben and Neal; Jim BALLARD whose sons were Sanford and Mack; Wash MYERS, whose sons were Andy and George; andy NEWMAN, whose sons were Kit, marl, John and Doph; Grundy TERRELL, whose sons were Mat and Wes; Robert HARRIS, whose sons were Blackburn and Willie, and daughter Mary Jane; Mrs. John DINKINS, whose sons were Houston, Tom and Henry. The community sent out more doctors and preachers than any other community. Of its doctors were pelley and Lattie Graves, who were, from barefoot school boys, the most regular attendants at church, and always stood at the head of their classes, not only in the public schools, but in medical college, while working their way through. They were the leading merchants at Chapel Hill and it was there that they invented a household necessity "bluing" that was known to the entire country 'round about. Then came Dr. Willie F. WILSON, who died of a carbuncle on the back of his neck; Andy MYERS, dentist, who died of heart trouble, and George MYERS, who died in Bowling Green of hernia. And more recently it went, indirectly, two of the most promising young physicians who ever settled in the neighboring city of Bowling Green - Dr. Hoy NEWMAN and Dr. G.Y. GRAVES. Dr. Newman is now deceased and Dr. G.Y. Graves is rated as one of the South's noted surgeons. One of the preachers was W.W. MAYHEW, son-in-law of the said Uncle Billy Walker. So, too, there were his brothers-in-law, Henry KELLEY and Billy LYLES. Henry Kelley was the father of our own dear and lamented evangelists, John Kelley. Also evangelists were Bird Rather and Cousin Robert Harris. It was near this church that the ack Snow tragedy occurred in 1875. The menant of a great people and the grand old church still live to preach the Gospel to a thoughtless world. may God bless the memory of its dead. Sincerely, Albert H. HILL. |