THE BULLET by Thomas S. Fiske Pursuit of a family's genealogy offers the investigator special insights that others do not have. Historians usually deal with large events, so they miss actions which occur in families that lead up to major events. Genealogists are more likely to deal with the family dramas which lead to big events. This is especially true if one family line at a time is being followed. For instance, I had an unusual opportunity when I fell and broke both legs. While recovering from surgery for five weeks with nothing else to do, I turned over in my mind the questions that had been following me for fifty years. My grandmother had told me that her father was killed when she was a baby and that she knew very little about his death. Pursuit of the facts surrounding my great-grandfather's death gave me an opportunity. I was able to trace out his family and that of several brothers and sisters without diversion. It was simple, then, to see the pattern of events that originated with his murder. More specifically, if the one bullet had not been fired, or had missed, lives of many people would have been different. The following is a short outline of events that flowed from the firing of a bullet into the body of one James M. Walker, a white man. He had been working with the United States Secret Service to stop the killing of African-Americans, little boys and girls and their parents, by members of the Ku Klux Klan. The place was Owen County, Kentucky. The date was May 4, 1874. It was late on a rainy Monday afternoon when Klan chieftan Bill Smoot and his brother John, opened fire on James Walker in front of Hill's hotel. James and his brothers had been warned to stop interfering with the Klan's activities, but they would not. As a result, James lay dead in the dusty street in front of the Owen County court house, supposedly killed as the result of a feud. But there was no feud. That was a pretense used to justify murder. The following are just a few of the people whose lives were turned upside down as a result of the murder. Alice Grover Walker Pretty Alice Walker was waiting for her husband James to come home so they could go out to celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary. She got a funeral instead. With three small children in tow, Alice buried her husband on her father's farm. Fortunately, she had a large family that would take care of her and the children. After three years Alice got a proposal of marriage from the town doctor. Unfortunately, though, the old bachelor did not seem to relate well with Alice's young son, Grover Walker. So, he was shipped off to military school. It was hard on Alice to part with her son, but she was a dutiful wife. The doctor was seventeen years older than Alice, and in poor health. He died after about five years of marriage, leaving Alice a widow once more. But she coped. Seven years later she married her father's business partner. He was also an older man who was a widower. He doted on Alice and built a large home for her, which still stands. And then he died, making Alice a widow for the third time. Alice's son went out to Kansas to be with his uncle, James Walker's brother, Tom, and he seldom came back. In 1909 he was killed in an automobile accident. Two years later Alice also died. But first she had James Walker's body moved to the new city she was living in. She had herself buried next to him, the man she eloped with, forty-five years before. That one bullet cost Alice dearly. How many more children might she and James have had? What kind of life might they have had together, and what influence would they have had on neighbors? No one will ever know. Aura Grover Walker Pretty as her sister Alice, but in a different way, Aura, saw how happy were Alice and her husband, with their little family. So when James' brother Henry presented himself, Aura happily married him. She was only seventeen. They had one little boy, Porter Grover. Henry, however, was supposed to be a witness against the Klan in a trial in federal court. The Klan couldn't control federal courts as they could control state courts, so they had to control witnesses instead. Henry disappeared from the face of the earth. In 1877, Aura re-married. This marriage was also to a doctor. The couple moved away to Detroit Michigan. Porter, following his double first cousin Grover went west to Kansas to be with his uncle Tom Walker. Aura came back to Kentucky in 1920 to be buried. Thomas M. Walker "Big Tom" Walker fought valiantly to keep the sheriff of Owen County and the rest of the Klansmen from killing him and his brothers and Deputy U. S. Marshal Willis Russell. At one point he had to hold a shotgun to the Sheriff's head. As soon as Bill Smoot was tried, Tom fled to Colorado with other honest citizens of the County. Both the Klan and its puppet, the Law were after them. Eventually Tom found his way to the Prairie of Kansas where he opened a general merchandise store. He bought up land, lent money, and raised crops and cattle, and prospered with the other settlers. In recognition of the needs of people, he opened several banks across the State and into Missouri. He bought into several other businesses. He brought out two young people he could trust to help him manage his business interests: his nephew Grover and his nephew Porter, sons of his two dead brothers. But they were both dead by 1913. Tom married a much younger woman and they had two children. Tommy, died at the age of 18. Daughter Henrie, named for his dead brother, Henry, married a wealthy industrialist. They had two children, both boys. The grandson named after Tom was killed by a drunk driver in 1937. And the other son, the one supposed to carry on the family line, turned out to be gay. Tom died in 1931, a wealthy man. I was born after that, and was named for Tom. Thomas Walker was clearly a successful man. But if the bullet had not killed his brother, he would have been successful in Kentucky, would have met and married someone else, and would probably have had descendants living today. Other Walker Brothers From family oral history, it appears that brothers Charlie and Farmer also fled the state of Kentucky. Recent accounts had them fleeing to Central America where Panama is today. The Klan and the Lawmen, one and the same, were after them as they were after their brother Tom. No record of them has ever been found once they left the State. Even brother Benjamin left for a while, but he returned and lived in the County peacefully. He had a large family and died near where he was born. People respected him as one of the town doctors. Lucinda Sparks Walker Lucy was the mother of the Walker boys. She and her husband brought up their children to hate slavery and to respect the rights of all people. She paid the price, losing all of them but Benjamin. Tom, Charlie, and Farmer fled the State and never returned for long, if ever. Henry and James were dead. Lucy herself died in 1905, quite old, having 10, 950 days after James' death to reconsider her position on justice. All because of one bullet. Where Does It All End? The story goes on. Alice Grover Walker's father was deeply involved, after losing two sons-in-law. Stella Walker, daughter of James, clearly missed the love of a strong male figure in her life. She had an unhappy marriage but managed to raise one daughter, named for Alice, the only surviving grandchild of the marriage of James and Alice. Young Alice married and had three sons, of whom the author is one. Many others not related to the Walkers fled the State. There was a confrontation between Federal troops and the Kentucky Militia in which cool heads prevented another edition of the War Between the States. Brave Willis Russell, former Deputy U.S. Marshal, was murdered before he could testify in court. Finally, it was Stella who told me the skimpy details of the death of her father. This tale has captured my imagination for fifty years and the research is not over yet. Furthermore, that one bullet has had the opposite effect than was intended. It was supposed to keep people from interfering with the Klan, but it has made many people very impatient with racial bias, even though they did not know the James Walker story. The ripples from one evil deed continue to spread out from their center, a bullet fired, across time and through generations. No end is in sight. USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: Material may be freely used by non- commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other presentation.