Walker was an active member of the Methodist church and held several public offices, including overseer of the poor and surveyor of the road for King and Queen County. The journal documents religious life, plantation finances, and slavery in and around King and Queen County.
Information appears on camp meetings, church business, and Methodist preachers.
Also documented are Walker's income and expenditures from cotton and wheat planting and his silkworm business, and Walker's legal actions as executor of his father's and and other's estates. Several entries provide information on slaves holding skilled positions outside the household or fields. Entries also provide many examples of slave resistance. Also documented is Samuel Thomson's method of botanic family medicine, which Walker adopted in the 1830s. Little information appears on family life or community life.