Читать книгу Life of Charles T. Walker, D.D. ("The Black Spurgeon") - Silas Xavier Floyd - Страница 8

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It has long been a mooted question as to which State in the Union produces the best class of Negroes. Though there are no scientific data from which to draw definite conclusions, it is very generally agreed that the best Negroes—the most intellectual, most industrious, wealthiest, and the best behaved Negroes—come either from Virginia or Georgia. If that be true, then, if one is so fortunate as to be a native Georgian with Virginia ancestors, or vice versa, he ought to be considered a Negro of superior birth, to say the least. Viewed in this light, Charles Thomas Walker was born to superiority. In 1773, a family of Negroes was brought from Virginia to Burke County, Georgia, by the grandfather of the late Col. A. C. Walker, who was a prominent Georgia planter and politician and who for many years was a member of the Georgia legislature. In 1880, Col. Walker, writing of the Negro Walkers who had descended from the family brought to Georgia by his grandfather, said: “As slaves, they were noted for their admirable qualities, and as freedmen they have sustained their reputation.”

Charles Thomas Walker was the fourth in descent from this family. His father was a man of the name of Thomas Walker, and was one of three brothers. Thomas Walker was his master’s coachman—a position which only the best and most trustworthy slaves were allowed to hold, and a position which the slaves themselves always considered as a place of honor. The fact, also, that he was a deacon in the church of which he was a member attests the esteem in which he was held by the other slaves. Two of Charles T. Walker’s uncles, Joseph T. Walker and Nathan Walker, were both Baptist ministers. The Franklin Covenant Baptist Church, about five miles from Hephzibah, Ga., and only a short distance from the Burke County line, was organized for the colored people in 1848. In 1852 or 1853, this church, though its membership was made up of slaves, raised the necessary amount and purchased the freedom of the Rev. Joseph T. Walker, at that time their pastor, in order that he might devote himself entirely to his church work and to the preaching of the gospel in the counties of Richmond, Jefferson and Burke. In this work, Rev. Joseph T. Walker continued until the close of the war. The Rev. Nathan Walker, though a licensed preacher before the war, was not ordained to the ministry until 1866, when he succeeded his brother as pastor of the Franklin Covenant Baptist Church.

In 1848, Thomas Walker was married to a young woman of the name of Hannah Walker. To them eleven children were born—six females and five males. On the 5th day of February, 1858, near Hephzibah, Richmond County, Ga., about sixteen miles southwest of Augusta, their youngest child—Charles Thomas Walker—was born. Thomas Walker, the father, was buried the day before Charles was born, having died of pneumonia. Mrs. Hannah Walker survived her husband eight years, dying in Augusta, Ga., in 1866. It is related of her that she was a woman of unusual piety and strength of character, being a devout member of the Franklin Covenant Baptist Church, of which her husband was a deacon. She had high hopes and fond expectations for her youngest child, and longed to live to see him make a great and good man of himself, and especially so, because of the sad death of his father which occurred only two days before the child was born. God willed otherwise, and took her home to be with him and to watch from the “high and uplifted” battlements of glory the career of her son.

The following tribute to Mrs. Hannah Walker is taken from “Under the Stars and Bars; or Memories of Four Years’ Service with the Confederate Army.” This book was written by Mr. Walter A. Clark, Treasurer of Richmond County, Ga. Mr. Clark was a prominent officer in the Confederate Army; he is a graduate of Emory College (Georgia), and a literary man of great merit; he is a nephew of the late Col. Walker, already quoted in this book, was reared along with the black Walkers and knows whereof he speaks. His tribute to Mrs. Walker is no less a credit to the memory of the deceased than it is a testimony of the goodness of heart and magnificent manhood of the writer.

“My heart prompts me to pay its earnest tribute to one whose memory the sketch above recalls—dear old Aunt Hannah. How her name brings back to my heart and life to-day the glamour of the old, old days that will never come again—days when to me a barefoot boy, life seemed a long and happy holiday! I can see her now, her head crowned with a checkered handkerchief, her arms bare to the elbows, her spectacles set primly on her nose, while from her kindly eyes there shone the light of a pure white soul within! She was only an humble slave, and yet her love for me was scarcely less than that my father and mother bore me; and when, on a summer’s day in 1861, my brother and myself left the old homestead to take our humble places under a new born flag, there was not a dry eye on the whole plantation, old Aunt Hannah wept in grief as pure and deep as if the clods were falling on an own child.

“Long years have come and gone since she was laid away in the narrow house appointed for all the living. No marble headstone marks the spot, yet I am sure the humble mound that lies above her sleeping dust covers a heart as honest and as faithful, as patient and as gentle, as kindly and as true, as any that rests beneath the proudest monument that art could fashion or affection buy. She reared a large family of children, the Rev. Charles T. Walker, ‘The Black Spurgeon,’ among them, and transmitted to them all a character for honesty and virtue marked even in those, the better days of the Republic.

“Wisely or otherwisely, in the order of Providence, or in the order of Napoleon’s ‘heavier battalions,’ we have in this good year of our Lord (1900) not only a New South, but a new type of Aunt Hannah. The old is, I fear, a lost Pleiad, whose light will shine no more on land or sea or sky.”

The Walker family produced a number of able and successful preachers—some say more, some say less. As already shown, two of Dr. Walker’s uncles—Joseph T. Walker and Nathan Walker—were ministers. The latter is still living, venerated and honored, at the good old age of 85. He was one of the founders of the Walker Baptist Association, and was for more than twenty years its moderator, retiring about ten years ago on account of the infirmities of old age. The Association was named in honor of the Rev. Joseph T. Walker. The Walker Baptist Institute at Augusta, named also for the Rev. Joseph T. Walker, was founded by this Association and has been for many years supported by it. In all respects the Walker Baptist Association is to-day the leading Association in Georgia. An older brother of Dr. Walker, the Rev. Peter Walker, now retired on account of age, was, in his day, a man of great force and power in the pulpit. A nephew of Dr. Walker, the Rev. Prof. Joseph A. Walker, son of Rev. Peter Walker, was up to the time of his death, about eight years ago, the honored and successful Principal of Walker Baptist Institute. Besides these, there are two first cousins of Dr. Walker who are among Georgia’s most distinguished clergymen—the Rev. W. G. Johnson, D. D., Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Macon, Ga., who is Secretary of the Walker Baptist Association, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Walker Baptist Institute, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Atlanta Baptist College; and the Rev. R. J. Johnson, Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Millen, Ga., and Treasurer of the Board of Trustees of the Walker Baptist Institute. Other cousins in the ministry are the Rev. Samuel C. Walker, Augusta, Ga., Rev. A. J. Walker, Millen, Ga., Rev. T. W. Walker, Wrightsville, Ga., Rev. Solomon Walker, Savannah, Ga., Rev. Matthew Walker, Savannah, Ga., an elder in the C. M. E. Church, and Rev. Nathan Wilkerson, Waynesboro, Ga. In addition to these, there are many of this family who were once in the ministry of earth, but who have long since gone to join the ministry on high.

Descended from a generation of preachers, Dr. Walker towers above them all like Saul among his brethren. So great is his fame and so celebrated has he made the name of Walker that the other members of the family find it a passport in many places for them to make it known that they belong to the generation of Walkers.