Sarah told her grandchildren, William Thomas, Estelle, Terry, Alfred, and Ruth in later years how her suitor William Walker rode his horse beside Alfred G. Lane's wagon as they left Jaspar Alabama in 1859 for Texas, begging her to stay and marry him. William eventually prevailed and Sarah turned back toward Jaspar with William where they were married. Their only child, Alfred Jack Walker was born there March 3, 1862. In 1863 William joined the Confederate forces as a private in Company K 4th Regiment Alabama Cavalry. Federal mililtary records document his capture by Union Forces in 1864 while on patrol in Walker County and transfer to a Union military prison in Louisville, Kentucky. On July 27 1864 he signed by mark an Oath of Allegiance to the United States. He was then sent from the Department of the Cumberland to be later transported north of the Ohio River and released. There are no official records known to exist for William after that time. Sarah once said that his horse had returned home with an empty saddle and they knew that he was dead. We know nothing of what happened to him after his release by the Federal forces nor have we been able to confirm a death place or date.
1911 Pecan Grove Picture - Estelle age 17, Sarah (Lane) Walker 76, John Terry 16, Alfred 14, Ruth 10 and A.J. Walker 49
Sarah's father had originally settled a short distance from the mouth of the San Saba River on a place known as Joe Ford bottom in a log cabin and later moved to McAnelly Bend (now Bend) in Lampasas County. During the Civil War Alfred G. Lane kept in touch with his brother John M. Lane, encouraging him and other Lane Families to come to Texas. He described in letters the good land that was available for homesteading.
There is some evidence that Sarah and young Jackie, now almost four years old, left Alabama for Texas in the fall of 1865 after crops were in, traveling with her uncle John M. Lane. The entire clan of John M. Lane consisting of his eleven children, in-laws, and grandchildren travelled as a group supported by two wagons, a conestoga pulled by mules and a smaller wagon pulled by oxen and this group arrived at Nolanville in Bell County in late February of 1866.
On arriving at the San Saba River in Lampasas County, Sarah and young Jackie lived their first two years in Texas with her brother George. They then homesteaded an adjoining 160 acres and settled on Antelope Creek where with the help of relatives and neighbors they built a small log cabin. In 1891 Jackie and his mother Sarah bought land in San Saba County in the Pecan Grove Community where they lived for the rest of their lives. Jack Walker married first Sarah Spier and after her death in 1892 he married Ada Terry. Ada died in 1901 and Jackie's mother Sarah stepped in to help her son raise the five Walker children. On these pages are the genealogical records of the children and grandchildren of Alfred Andrew Jackson Walker and Sarah Spier, his first wife, and Ada Ruth Terry, his second wife.