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Dr. E. W. Branyon’s Bio
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down the primeval forest.”
The first recorded presence of a Branyon
in America was in 1765 in Abbeville, South Carolina, near Greenville and Spartanburg. From there several Branyon families immi- grated to Mississippi, to towns such as Kosciusko, named for a Polish general who fought for the Americans in the Revolutionary War. The Poles had lots of generals because they were always fighting due to there stra- tegic placement in Europe.
My mother’s family came from Scotland also. Her maiden name was Walker and it probably evolved from a trade in which cloth was thickened in a process called “waulking the cloth.” Her grandfather, Newton Edmund Walker lived from 1846 to 1929, and left a short memoir of his Mississippi life. “I was born in the state of Nullification and mother of seces- sion,” he wrote. “I was married to the very prettiest and best girl in the town of Carthage, Mississippi. When the war began we were a happy family.”
Walker joined the Confederate Army at 16 but was discharged for being too young. “Papa came with brother William and he took my place and uniform and I cried and went home to Mama. He never got home again but