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LINCOLN COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA - BIOS: SANFORD, Walker J.
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
PJAFLA@aol.com
September 17, 1999
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Source Hardesty, Henry H. Hardesty's Historical and Geographical
Encyclopedia, New York: H. H. Hardesty and Company, 1884. Rpt in West
Virginia Heritage Encyclopedia. Ed. Jim Comstock. Richmond; Comstock. 1974
WALKER J SANFORD:
Among the early
settlers in the Guyandotte Valley was Robert Sanford. For many years he
resided in Orange county, Virginia, but in 1809 removed west and settled on
Guyandotte river, near where Barboursville, the county seat of Cabell county,
now stands. His son, Walker J the subject of this sketch was born in Orange
county on the 3 day of June, 1797; he still lives, now in his eighty-seventh
year. At the age of twelve he accompanied his father to their new home in the
Guyandotte country. he well remembers the formation of Cabell county and the
attempt to hold the first court in 1810 at which time the people informed the
judge who came to preside, that they did not care to be bothered with
judgments, indictments, etc.' and that he would do better to return east,
where they had more need of law. When the war of 1812 broke out he was in his
fifteenth year and he remembers the names of many of those from Cabell county
who enrolled their names and carried arms in defense of "free trade and
sailors' rights."
In 1817 Mr Sanford was united in
marriage with Sarah Brumfield. They reared a family of nine children, two
girls and seven boys. Of the latter Marine, the eldest, born in 1819, is a
merchant at Hamlin, and although now in his sixty-third year, has never
resided more than three miles from his present location. Five of the sons are
prominent ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Henry C is the
presiding elder of the Charleston district. Vanlinden resides four miles west
of Charleston, and has been in the ministry more than twenty-five years;
William D has charge of a circuit somewhere in the Elk River valley; James L
was for several years in charge of Weston station; but some time since was
transferred to an Ohio conference and is now laboring in the northern part of
that State; Robert lives at West Columbia, West Virginia where he preaches
occasionally and George W resides at New Haven, in the same State,
prominently identified with the church and Sabbath schools of that town.
The father, though having lived seventeen
years beyond the scriptural allotment, still retains all his mental
faculties, especially that of memory, which does not appear to be in the
least impaired, and if one visits Hamlin and can induce "Grandpa Sanford," as
he is familiarly called, to abandon his work and engage in conversation, he
will learn much of the early history of the Mud and Guyandotte valleys, from
one who has long outlived his own generation.
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