Benjamin Borden's Agents & Settlers

When Benjamin Borden came to Augusta he made different men his agents and lodged at their houses using the houses as places to see persons wanting land. Aside from John McDowell with whom he first met he had John Patterson, through whom he sold many tracts of land. McDowell first made entries of one hundred acres each for James Bell, Alexander Breckenridge, George, James, Robert and Adam Breckenridge, John Moore, Quentin Moore, John Walters, William McCanless, Robert Poage, Seth Poage, Daniel McAnaire and John Gwinn, the land to be given them if they would build and improve on it by the next April. This agreement was dated Feb. 21, 1738-39. The settlers got no deeds and brought suit against Borden's executor for titles. Benjamin Borden, Jr. charged in answer that James Bell caused a servant wench of his to be dressed in man's clothes and made an entry in her name as a man, and also caused another woman, the wife of William McCanless, to appear in her proper person on a different part of the land as the wife of another settler and thereby obtained another entry.
Among other purchasers were David Moore, Isaac Anderson, Andrew Moore, William Evans, John Downing, William Sawyers, John Paul, Robert Campbell, Samuel Wood, John Mathews, John Edmiston, Richard Woods, John Hays, Charles Hays, Samuel Walker, John McCraskey. Alexander Miller was the first Blacksmith and John Hays the first owner of a mill. James Greenlee came in 1737.

(Sourced verbatim from Kegley's Virginia Frontier: The Beginning of the Southwest : the Roanoke of Colonial Days, 1740-1783, by Frederick Bittle Kegley, The Stone Press. Roanoke, VA. 1938)

A Koger Marries a Porter, GrandDaughter of the Western Waters

On November 26, 1818, in Floyd County, Kentucky, my great-great-great-grandfather James Koger married Sarah Walker Porter, aka "Sally". Tracing the Walker name in Sally's name led me to her paternal grandmother Susanna Walker (1739-1795), who married Sgt. Patrick Porter (1737-1805) around 1756 at Walker's Creek, Augusta County, Virginia.
Sgt. Patrick Porter and his father-in-law, John Walker, my 6x great-grandfather, relocated to southwest Virginia about 1770-1772, settling on the Clinch River in what became Russell County. Western lands in North Carolina had been closed to settlement by Colonial government policy until 1778. In Virginia, however, Indian Treaties of 1768 and 1770 opened the "western waters" for settlement. While there had been settlers in the area before these treaties, emigration into the area did not begin in earnest until 1769-70. The Walker and Porter families were likely part of this immigration.
In 1772, the Porters, along with others, moved from Castle's Woods, where they had first settled, to Patrick Porter's land survey at Falling Creek, near present day Dungannon, Virginia. They quickly set to building a fort, called Porter's Fort, nearby. In 1774 Porter added a mill, the first on the Clinch River, and gradually a settlement began to grow.
Daniel Boone lived in the Castle's Woods, Virginia area from 1773-1775. The Porters were friends with the pioneer. Patrick's son (my 5x great-uncle) Samuel Walker Porter travelled with Daniel Boone to Kentucky in 1773, and in 1778 answered Boone's request for assistance defending Boonesborough during the Shawnee siege.
At various times, Patrick Porter commanded part or all of the forts along the Clinch River and was in charge of monitoring and responding to hostile Indian activity over a wide area.

John Walker III (1705-1778)

John Walker, the son of an immigrant of the same name came first to Augusta County [Virginia] and later to Rockbridge, where they settled and lived on a creek named for them and which still carries the name of Walker's Creek.
Leaving Rockbridge County, this John Walker arrived on the Clinch in the year 1773, and settled on a 300 acre tract of land at the "sink" of Sinking Creek between Castlewood [Castle's Woods] and Dungannon. This tract of land he named "Broad Meadows." He was born in 1705 in Ireland and had married, about 1734, Ann Houston, who may have been a sister of William who built Houston's Fort on Big Moccasin Creek in Scott County. Upon arrival on the Virginia frontier, John Walker was some 68 years old and had undoubtedly followed his children in their westward wanderings. Despite his advanced age, when he arrived on the Clinch he lived to see his son and daughter-in-law slain by the Indians, and his daughter and grandson carried into captivity and who had not returned at the time of his death. He died sometime between Sept 23rd and Nov. 17, 1778. His will bearing date of Sept 23rd, (no year given, but presumed) was probated Nov. 17, 1778.
The known children of John and Ann Houston Walker were: Susanna, Mary, Jane, Hetty, Ann, Martha, Margaret, John, and Samuel.

(Source: Pioneer Settlers of The Clinch, by Emory L. Hamilton, Clinch Valley Times, St. Paul, Virginia, Oct. 10, 1967)

Patrick Porter (1737-1805)

In 1769, Patrick Porter and his family, William and Edward Russell, and a party led by John Morgan (consisting of the Walker sisters and their husbands, William and Andrew Cowan, James Smith, William Trimble, James Wharton, Fredrick Fraley, Joseph Moore, James Anderson, three Dickenson brothers, and Col. John Snoddy) moved to the area called "Castle's Woods," which was settled earlier by Jacob Castle. The group soon built Snoddy's Fort, later called Moore's Fort, the largest on the Clinch River.
In 1772, Porter and his family, along with Raleigh Stallard, Capt. John Montgomery (Porter's son-in-law,) Samuel Porter, and Charles Kilgore moved to Porter's land survey at Falling Creek near present day Dungannon, Virginia. Shortly they set to building a fort, called Porter's Fort, nearby. In 1774 Patrick Porter added a mill, the first on the Clinch, where Falling Creek spills over a cliff near the river.