Nearly a generation before Daniel Boone, and 42 years before Kentucky would become a state, Dr. Thomas Walker led a party of explorers through the Cumberland Gap to the western wilderness of Kanta-Ke.  Walker set off from his home on March 6, 1750, with 5 men, 7 horses, and an assortment of hunting dogs to look for and claim land suitable for settlement as part of the 800,000 acre land grant to the Loyal Company of Virginia.

     Traveling for over 3 months and covering 350 miles of uncharted territory, Dr. Walker set about naming mountains and waterways, including the Cumberland River, in honor of the Duke of Cumberland.  Along the way, the party encountered many hardships, including injuries to men, their dogs, and their horses, which Walker treated according to medical practices of the time.  When Colby Chew was knocked senseless by a fall from his horse, the good Dr. Walker recounts, “I administered volatile drops to empty his stomach of its contents and rid him of the sick feeling he had gotten from the fall.  I then bled him of 12 ounces, thereby rebalancing the humors and preventing further consequences".  Chew declined further treatment.  Walker’s party abandoned their search for farmland at present day Irvine and headed back east not knowing that they were almost at the edge of the fertile Bluegrass of central Kentucky.  Twenty-nine years later, Walker returned to Kentucky, this time enduring the “hard winter of ’79-80” to survey an extension of the boundary between Virginia and North Carolina, today the state line between Kentucky and Tennessee.

     Dr. Thomas Walker State Historic Site in Barbourville marks the earliest travels of Dr. Walker and includes a replica of the first log cabin in the new territory that he and his party built there in 1750.

     Dr. Walker will be portrayed by Danny Hinton, living history presenter from Livingston.  Hinton’s previous acting experience includes portraying Dr. Walker for the television program Heartland, Channel 10 in Knoxville, and film productions about Colonial period America, including a role as an extra in The Patriot.  An experienced re-enactor as well, Hinton is featured as a cast member in orientation films at Ft. Boonesborough State Park, Cumberland Gap National Park, and Wilderness Road State Park in Virginia.  Joining Kentucky Chautauqua for the first time, Mr. Hinton is continuing a life-long pursuit of researching and teaching others about frontier Kentucky.  By day, he is employed as a toolmaker in Mt. Vernon.

     Each year, the Kentucky Humanities Council, Inc., a non profit located in Lexington, tells Kentucky’s story by providing over 200 living history dramas to community groups across Kentucky.  Kentucky Chautauqua was begun by the Humanities Council in 1992 to celebrate Kentucky’s bicentennial of statehood.  Over a year goes into preparing each program to insure dramatic interest, historic accuracy, and a good, authentic, story to tell.  Successful Chautauquans, chosen from state wide auditions, travel throughout Kentucky to both entertain and educate audiences of all ages and in a wide variety of locations.  Chautauquans are not re-enactors: they are visitors from the past who become the person they represent in a convincing drama, similar to Hal Holbrook’s ever-popular Mark Twain Tonight presentation.  All Chautauquans represent Kentuckians or people who lived a substantial part of their lives in Kentucky.

     Dr. Thomas Walker and 15 other Kentucky Chautauqua programs are available beginning August 1 to communities everywhere in Kentucky.  There is a modest booking fee.  For more information about how to schedule Kentucky Chautauqua, contact the Kentucky Humanities Council, Inc., 206 E. Maxwell St., Lexington, KY 40508, (859) 257-5932 or www.kyhumanities.org.