Walker-Peters-Langdon House in Columbus Georgia

 Links back to the Walker Family page

Virgil Homer Walker built a "town house" in Columbus, GA, that was either intended to be used when the family was in Columbus on business, or he built this as a business investment. The Walker plantation in Harris county was about 20 miles away, a days' travel in the 1830's. The house is described as a "prefabricated house" that was moved on to the town lot.  This house is on the National Registry of Historic Sites, and is considered the oldest house in Columbus. The house is a museum, operated by the Columbus HistoricFoundation, and tours can be arranged.

There is a little "Walker-Peters" controversy regarding the house, as it may be that the Walker's never lived in the house. Two of Virgil's siblings, John Thacker Walker (b. 1806, a Columbus magistrate) and Dr. Austin Martin Walker (b. 1812, physician) lived in Columbus, so he may have stayed with them when he was in town, or he may have had another house besides this one.

One theory, relayed by museum documents and tour narrative: Columbus was founded in 1828 after the Creek Indian removal, and Virgil Walker bought three town lots in 1828 as investments. Once the pre-fabricated house was built on this lot, and perhaps before it was completely finished, the Nathaniel Peters family moved in to it, although Virgil retained the deed until 1836. It is thought that Nathaniel Peters and Virgil Walker were close friends, as they may have served together in the Seminole Indian Wars, and the Peter's may have also had land north of Columbus, perhaps near the Walkers' plantation. It is speculated that perhaps Virgil was in business with others unknown to build the pre-fabricated houses during the early boom-town days of Columbus. It is stated elsewhere that the Walkers trained slaves to be skilled artisans (ref 3), and that they produced all the materials for building the plantation homes. Since there were vast natural resources on the Walker plantation, including pine forests that would need to be cleared for farmland, perhaps resulting in lumber for building, and the ability to produce bricks, the Walker's may have been using their natural and human resources to build the pre-fabricated houses, and the Walker-Peters-Langdon house may have been a "model home".

Additional evidence lends credence to this theory. The house is located a few blocks south of downtown Columbus, in the historical district, but it is the only house in the district that was original. Other, more elaborate, houses in the district were moved in from other areas in Columbus. It is thought that the block where the house is located was originally built out with pre-fabricated houses, like the Walker-Peters-Langdon house. However, the Walker-Peters-Langdon house differs from all the other pre-fabricated houses, as it had a basement in which it had a "winter kitchen" (because it helped heat the house in the winter). This is a kitchen built in the basement, with two cooking hearths, one at each end of the house, one high temperature and one low temperature.

At that time, most houses had kitchens in a separate building to protect the house from the open hearth fires. According to the tour guide, the Walker house is  the only house in Columbus with a kitchen in the basement. Interestingly enough, it is the same winter kitchen set-up as Virgil Walker's plantation house, with the exception that the plantation house also had a "summer kitchen" that was a detached building (subsequently connected to the house, still evident today on the right side in this photo)).

Although he may have never lived in the house, some of the furnishings in the house did belong to Virgil, including his desk, his traveling trunk, a portrait of his wife Ann champion (Bell) Walker, and a botanical card.

As a museum, the house is filled with period decor. also on the wall in one of the rooms is the Walker Family Tree (this sure gets around!), and an engraving of George Walker, Governor of Londonderry, whom some believe is an ancestor of Virgil's great-grandfather George (as yet unsubstantiated).

In Virgil's will, he is passing a couple of Columbus lots off to his offspring. Research of the wills, tracking down the lot numbers, may indicate who received the other lots upon his death.