Frank Walker has combined a love of history with a lifetime of living and working in the Orange County area to produce a comprehensive and well-received county history. The events affecting the county's Native Americans, European Americans and African Americans are chronicled in a work which lends itself to being read not only cover-to-cover, but also in selected specific chapters, subchapters, episodes, and stories. While his book is thoroughly researched, with footnotes, and provides its readers with the detail expected in such a work, Walker relies on his experience as a tour guide to make his presentations interesting as well as informative. Remembering tells us about James Madison and his Montpelier; gold mining; "our" William of Orange; Robert E. Lee; Germanna; the slave Pompey, Shackaconia; the Marquis de Lafayette; the Poor Folks & Preachers Railroad; Barboursville; and much, much more. The reader is rewarded with a chuckle here, a laugh there, and with interesting information everywhere.

About the Author

Frank Stringfellow Walker, Jr. was born and raised in Madison County, Virginia, just across the Rapidan River that divides Madison and Orange counties. He was the fourth generation of Walkers to live at Rosni, the dairy farm that had been in the family since it was purchased in 1805 from the heirs of Francis Madison, brother of the President. Although history was not an everyday topic of conversation in his childhood home, the family was steeped in history. On his mother's side Mr. Walker can trace his lineage to Thomas Jefferson; and on his father's side to Robert Stringfellow Walker, a Confederate cavalry captain with Mosby's Rangers. When the Civil War was over, Captain Walker married and had six sons, and together with his wife and sister established Woodberry Forest School, a nationally renowned college preparatory school for boys in Madison County.

Mr. Walker was educated at Woodberry Forest, Virginia Tech (BS in agronomy) and the University of Virginia (MBA & JD). After a couple of decades as a farmer, followed by over a decade practicing law, Mr. Walker decided in 1994 to pursue yet another profession. His growing knowledge of local history became a calling. Looking around where he had lived all his life, he saw significant heritage at every turn, but many people knew little of that rich heritage, while growth and development threatened to overshadow, if not erase, the evidences of it. Mr. Walker established Tourguide, Ltd., and as a freelance tour guide, speaker and writer, began sharing his accumulated knowledge of the region with both locals and visitors. He is motivated by the belief that as more people become aware of Orange's heritage, they will join in the effort to promote and protect it for the next generation, even in the face of inevitable growth and development.

Mr. Walker lives in Orange County, just across the Rapidan River from where he grew up. He is married and has two adult daughters and one granddaughter.