Our Family Documents

T. J. Walker estate settlement - 1863 2

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Thomas J. Walker's succession was in the same file as Thomas J. Watkins in the courthouse. I am confused as to the location of both documents in the same file. Both show $133.90 as the value of the estate. T. J. Watkins succession is written in French, in the same hand as the second page of T. J. Walker and it also is in French. There is an Elizabeth Watkins, wife of T. J. Watkins in his succession and there is an Elizabeth Walker on the second page of T. J. Walker's succession. The names in both documents are clearly written as Watkins and Walker, but I have my doubts about the validity of T. J. Walker's succession because of the coincidence of both the $133.90 and Elizabeth appearing in both documents. To the best of my knowledge, we did not have an Elizabeth in T. J. Walker's family except for Elizabeth Walker who married an O'Bannion in VA, went to Missouri and then to St. Landry, Louisiana. I beleive she may have been T. J. Walker's sister or Aunt, more probably an aunt.

The official records were lost when the St. Landry Parish Courthouse burned down in 1886 and these two successions may have been recovered from A. Cart's (attorney for both successions) files and mixed together because of the mistakes made by A. Cart. Because of the mix, I can't verify that the T. J. Walker succession is an actual record for our family. T. J. Watkins married an Elizabeth Hudspeth as a second wife. His first wife, Celestine Lejeune, had his children who are listed in his portion of the combined succession and she is mentioned in the succession.