Doctor Thomas Walker's Journal

(6 Mar 1749/50 - 13 Jul 1750)

A Record of His Travels in

Present-day Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky

From 1729 to 1749, the dividing line between Virginia and North Carolina was based on the 1728 survey "from the Sea to Peters Creek" by the Honorable William Byrd, William Dandridge and Richard Fitzwilliams, Commissioners, and Mr. Alexander Irvine and Mr. William Mayo, surveyors. During this period, white settlements on both sides of the line had already extended much further west than Peter's Creek as is shown in a map drawn by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson in 1751 which included Mulberry Fields on the Yadkin River in present-day Wilkes County, North Carolina, executed after "The Line between Virginia and North Carolina, from Peters Creek to Steep Rock Creek, being 90 Miles and 280 Poles, was Survey'd in 1749 By William Churton and Daniel Weldon of North Carolina and Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson of Virginia." Steep Rock Creek is present-day Laurel Creek in Johnson, Tennessee's northeasternmost county, and stopping there was clearly short-sighted given Colonel James Patton's 1,946 acre Virginia grant of 1744, which included the Sapling Grove tract that is today part of Bristol, Sullivan County, Tennessee.

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