GEORGE WALTERS

He and her husband Christina established a legal claim to 344 acres on Mill Branch, along a tributary of the New River, in 1777 in what is now Christiansburg, VA. After this they apparently moved their family to Northumberland County, VA until shortly after the American Revolution. They would divorce over his Tory sympathies at the onset of the American Revolution, though at least for awhile they both ended up living in Montgomery County, Virginia.

George sided with the British early on during American Revolution, but his wife Christiana was pro-American. He nevertheless became a British soldier. In August of 1780 he was tried for treason ("For misbehaviour and treason against the state" being the official charge) and found guilty. (The records simply refer to him as "a poor and ignorant man".) But he was offered an alternative to imprisonment: he could sign an oath of loyalty to the United States and spend 18 months fighting for the Continental Army. He did, fighting in Captain McCorkle's company from Montgomery County, VA, and thus also was a soldier in Washington's peacetime Revolutionary army (which was disbanded in 1783, not long after George's 18 months would have expired). This wasn't good enough for Christiana, however, and they eventually divorced.

George's service record included the following information: George Walter, 41, 5'6 1/2", planter, born Lancaster Co., PA; grey hair & eyes, dark complexion; date of enlistment, 11 Sept. 1780; length of service: 1 yr., 6 mos. (Much information on him also comes from the Draper Papers, 5QQ, the William Preston Papers, 1779-1791, and lists of Loyalists.)

Read more information on George Walters from a history of Montgomery County, Virginia by Mary Kegley.

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