Born- 18 Aug 1800

At- Lincoln County, North Carolina

Died- 18 Aug 1872

At- Whitfield County, Georgia

Buried- Dogwood Cemetery

(1) Married- Jane Peeler

Marriage Date- 1828 in York County, SC

Born- 1809 York County, SC

Died- 1850 Whitfield County, Georgia

Buried- Unknown

(2) Married- Matilda E. Eslinger

Marriage Date- 1851 in Whitfield County, Georgia

Born- 25 Dec 1824 Tennesse

Died- 28 Nov 1898 Walker County, Georgia

Buried- Unknown

BORN NORTH CAROLINA

            Jacob Stroup Jr. was born Mar. 18, 1771, son of Adam and Catherine Stroup of Saylor’s Branch of Little Hoyle’s Creek between (modern) Alexis and High Shoals.  When Jacob was 19, he married Elisabetha “Betsy” Dellinger (daughter of innkeeper Henry Dellinger and Hannah Rudisill) with a Lincoln Co. marriage bond dated August 25, 1790, William Goodson, bond surety. 

            About June 1791, Jacob Jr. and Betsy were living on land owned by his father when their first child was born.  The 1790 census showed one male under age 5 in Jacob’s household, but the census taker added a note at the end of his list, explaining that he did not finish the census until the summer of 1791 because of bad roads and great distances between farms.  (He also spoke no German, spelled badly, and left the German settlement at Hoyle’s Creek till last.)

            Jacob Jr.’s first son was born in the summer of 1791 in time to be counted in this late census.  They named him Adam, in honor of his paternal grandfather.

            Although Jacob and Betsy had more sons and daughters born between 1791 and 1800, their eldest child Adam died when he about eight or nine years old. 

            In August 1800, Betsy gave birth to another male infant, whom they named Adam Washington, to continue the family’s long tradition of the eldest son honoring the paternal grandfather.

IRON, THE STROUP FAMILY TRADE

            In Adam Washington’s boyhood, the Stroups were farmers who also manufactured small iron products as a cottage industry, making small cast or hammered ironware for the home and farm, along with hand crafted rifles, gunshot and gunpowder.

            According to tradition, Jacob Jr. and Betsy Stroup moved from his father’s farm on upper Hoyle’s Creek, and lived a few miles away at Ironton, where he was an iron worker who probably started in a mill owned by someone else, but then reputedly set up a small iron works of his own, smelting ore from the local deposits.  (Not confirmed)

            An iron mill, Washington Furnace, that made nails and household ironware, was operated by Jacob Rhyne who owned the land on both sides of Hoyle's Creek's at High Shoals about a mile down Alexis road from old Stroup farm.

            MOTHER'S DEATH

            In March 1807 when little Adam Washington was seven, his mother died at the age of 36 following the birth of her last child, Alexander, and was buried in the Dellinger cemetery on Elliot Road near Dallas, N.C.

            She left five small children, including the newborn Alexander. Thereafter, Adam Washington’s fourteen-year-old sister, Caty, took charge of him and the younger children with the help of their grandmother and aunts.

            RHYNE STEPMOTHER

             In 1807, a Stroup neighbor, iron master Jacob Rhyne died at High Shoals, and in 1809, Adam Washington’s father married the 44-year-old widow Hannah (Hoyle) Rhyne, who became the children’s new stepmother. Jacob Rhyne's will stated that if his widow remarried his farm was to be sold and the proceeds divided between his heirs. After she married Jacob Stroup Jr. this was carried out, with Hannah receiving one third.

            SISTER CATY'S MARRIAGE

            Hannah moved to the Jacob Stroup Jr. home, bringing with her eighteen year old son, Jacob Rhyne, Jr., and about a year later, he married Jacob Jr’s daughter Caty, but since they were teenaged, they continued living in the Stroup home.

           WAR OF 1812

            When the War of 1812 came, Jacob Stroup Jr., who knew that his father (Adam b 1746) and his grandfather (Jacob Sr. b 1724) had fought against the British, continued the tradition by raising a company of men from Lincoln County to fight the detested “lobster- backs” once again.  The men he recruited elected him their Captain, and, after the war ended, he returned home safely. 

          TO SOUTH CAROLINA

            In 1814, when his son Adam Washington was fourteen, “Captain” Jacob Stroup moved his family about 25 miles due south to Blacksburg, York District, S.C.

STROUP IRON WORKS ON KING'S CREEK

            At this new location, Jacob built a large iron works on King's Creek, shipping coal, limestone and ore by wagon from a 1,740-acre tract on Hoyle's Creek that he purchased from his father for $500. 

               TAVERN KEEPERS AND BUSINESS MEN

            However, Adam Washington and his brother Alexander did not inherit their father's large body build, and so, unlike their brothers Moses and Jacob, III., neither went into the iron business, being better suited for enterprises like those of their Dellinger grandfather, a wagon maker who became a prosperous innkeeper and business man.

FIRST WIFE, JANE PEELER

            In 1828, when Adam Washington was twenty-eight, he married in York District, S.C. Jane Peeler, born 1809 in S.C., daughter of Daniel Peeler and Lucy Leek. 

SPARTANBURG DISTRICT, S.C.

            Adam Washington and his wife moved with his father, who was continuing to expand his iron business and land speculation into new locations, buying up thousands of acres in North and South Carolina.

            After Jacob Stroup Jr’s iron works blew up during a flash flood, he moved his business and family, setting up new works called Cowpens Furnace, which employed so many men that a village grew up around it, making it profitable for Alex Stroup to start a tavern.  Jacob Stroup Jr.built a smaller mill near Spartanburg, S.C.  

HABERSHAM COUNTY, GA.

            Jacob Stroup Jr., in addition to building iron works, was a land speculator who bought up thousands of acres, some of which was in north Georgia’s Habersham County, in the foothills of the Great Smoky mountains, where he set up another small iron mill that made pots and pans for sale to the Indians and settlers.

             Father Jacob Stroup Jr.’s prosperity in the iron business caused part of his married children to follow him to various new locations where they either worked for him or set up taverns that served his large company of workmen.  However, at each of Jacob’s many moves, part of his married children chose to “stay behind”.  Later, as his business ventures changed his locations changed again, some who had gone with him “went back” to their earlier locations.

1830 CENSUS, HABERSHAM CO., GA.

            Before 1830, Adam Washington and Jane Stroup were living in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Habersham County, Georgia, a few miles south of Macon County, N.C.

            The 1830 federal census listed Adam Washington Stroup and his wife here; both aged 20 to 30, with one son under 5.  Adam Washington’s 1830 prosperity was shown by his ownership of 3 slaves, which was unusual for a young man of 30, but he apparently needed them for‚ the heavy labor to establish his new farm and tavern.

GOLD FEVER HITS GEORGIA

            In the 1830’s the neighboring Cherokee Indians were better educated than most whites --- because the phonetic alphabet invented by their scholar, Sequoia, was so easy to learn that the entire tribe became literate within months, enabling them to write down their traditional poetry, history and even cookbooks, traditional dishes seasoned with herbs from their kitchen gardens.

            Like the whites, the Cherokee were settled farmers who raised livestock.  They dressed like white men, and lived in log cabins, and, after the New Testament was translated, many of these intelligent and progressive people converted to the Methodists and Baptists.

             They had a representative in Congress, and about 1830 were lobbying to retain their ancestral lands when catastrophe struck: a little Indian boy found a gold nugget in a Georgia stream, and sold it to a white man.  This tiny lump of gold sealed the fate of the Cherokee --- because “gold fever” swept like a hot, dry wind, driving the lower classes, the poor white trash  “rednecks” wild with greed as they envisioned easy living after striking rich veins of gold.

            By 1837 the political pressure from Georgia and South Carolina was so great that an Act of Congress was proposed to remove the Cherokee from the lands they had owned for a thousand years, and open it to white settlers.  The Cherokee lost their historic homelands by one Congressional vote.

THE GREAT REMOVAL

            In 1838 General Winfield Scott was ordered to raise a special army to remove the Cherokee from the Carolinas and Georgia and transport them to land in Oklahoma that were considered barren and worthless. 

            The raising of this special army happened to coincide with a national depression, which led some good and honest men to enlist, expecting to pass a pleasant three months in the Army, receive a discharge and have enough cash to marry, buy a plot of land or build a house. 

SUMMER 1838, “THE TRAIL OF TEARS”

            However, Adam Washington Stroup was 38 years old, and already had a wife, five children and a house when he volunteered for the Cherokee Removal army, so apparently he considered this summer’s adventure that would bring him some “hard cash” during the depression when money was so scarce that many businesses and banks were going bankrupt.

            The reality of the dreadful summer of 1838 was nothing the volunteers could have anticipated.  Several who were a soldiers in the War of 1812 left a diary saying what they saw happening to the Cherokee was more brutal and gruesome than anything they ever saw in war.

            These “summer soldiers” were ordered to pull people from their homes and then herd them like cattle to New Orleans.  Private Adam Washington Stroup was assigned to drive a wagon, but the record does not say what he was ordered to haul.  Some wagons carried supplies, but others were filled with those who were unable to walk, including infants, small children, and the very elderly, all of whom were in the care of the wagon driver.

            The Cherokee, having lived for a thousand years in the high mountains, were unaccustomed to the heat of the lowlands, and were forced to drink from polluted streams, so that hundreds became ill, filling the wagons with those who were sick and dying of heat stroke, exhaustion and diarrhea along a route soon littered with graves, that will for eternity be called “The Trail of Tears”.  Not surprisingly, Private Adam Washington Stroup decided he did not need money badly enough to re-enlist for the second phase of herding these wretched refugees across the Great Plains in winter. He came home in September 1838, and his wife had a sixth child born that year.

MIGRATION INLAND

            Adam Washington, his father and siblings took part in the Georgia Land Lotteries to acquire Cherokee lands.  The Stroups were ambitious men and just as land hungry as their neighbors, so they were among the thousands who moved deeper into this mineral rich area of north Georgia.  The only difference was that the Stroups moved there to get cheap farmland, to manufacture iron or to operate taverns.  They were workers, not “gold panners”.

1840 CENSUS

            When the Federal Census of 1840 was made, Adam Washington Stroup was living in Walker County, Georgia, about 50 miles north of his father and siblings who were now at Stamp Creek near Cartersville, Georgia. At Stamp Creek, Jacob Jr. and his son Moses were building a large iron foundry around which was growing the new town of Etowah.

SELLS OUT IN HABERSHAM

            About 1841 - 1845, Adam sold his farm in Habersham County to Hugh Quinn and moved to Trickum, which at that time was part of west Walker County, Georgia.

DOGWOOD VALLEY

            Adam bought a large farm at Trickum Crossroads in Dogwood Valley, a very beautiful mountain area. At this time, Trickum Crossroads was bustling with activity because it was a stop over for travelers on a road junction with heavy traffic. The steep mountains of the Blue Ridge dictated that roads follow river valleys, and these valleys ran north and south.   Trickum was a true “Cross Roads”, a junction where the roads from Georgia and Tennessee joined an ancient Indian Trading Path that ran from north Georgia through the Carolinas up into Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, a Market Trading Path that ended at Philadelphia.

            Strange as it seems today, in the days before railroads, herds of livestock were driven from the southern states to market in Philadelphia by drovers who herded cattle, hogs -- even turkeys  --- up through the Shenandoah Valley.  This Trading Path was also the normal route used by stagecoaches, mail carriers and all the other travelers who relied on inns and stopovers along the route.

THE TRICKUM HOME PLACE

            At Trickum Crossroads, Adam Washington Stroup built a two-story log house containing eight rooms with eighteen glass-paned windows that proclaimed his prosperity.

This building became his family home, but it was also an inn for travelers and boarders, and his “great room” was used for county courts, tax collection and public meetings.

OCCUPATIONS

            Adam Washington Stroup was a small, wiry, energetic man who turned his hand to a number of businesses besides farming and raising livestock.  He operated a gristmill, blacksmith shop, stagecoach line and was the postmaster for Trickum.  His stagecoach line operated in north Georgia from Gordon Springs to Catoosa Springs.

1850 CENSUS, WALKER COUNTY, GA.

            The 1850 Federal Census for Walker County, Ga. (p 347) showed Adam’s household at Chickamauga Twp.

            Adam Stroup, farmer, age 50, b. N.C., wife Jane Stroup, 41, b. S.C.

            Children in home:  Jacob Stroup, 21, b. S.C.; Mary J. Stroup 16, b. Ga.; Anthony A. (Alexander) Stroup, 14, b. Ga.; Aaron Stroup, 12 b. Ga.; Sarah E. Stroup 9, b Ga.; James M. Stroup 6, b. Ga.; Henry D. Stroup 2, b. Ga.

JANE P. STROUP’S DEATH

            In 1851 Adam’s wife, Jane Peeler Stroup died, and was buried in Dogwood cemetery outside Trickum.

SECOND WIFE, MATILDA ESLINGER

            About 1853 Adam married a young widow, Mrs. Matilda A. Eslinger, born Dec. 25, 1824 in Tennessee. Matilda was 25 years younger than Adam, and although she undoubtedly married him to have support for herself and her small son, Richard Bruce Eslinger, she became a good mother to Adam’s brood, and was a vigorous and active young woman who helped manage his business ventures, along with bearing him two more daughters.

A HOUSE IN THREE DIFFERENT COUNTIES

            As the population increased, new counties were formed so that at first Trickum Crossroads in 1850 was in Walker County, Ga., but in 1851 it was in Whitfield County, and in 1853 in Catoosa County. One result of this formation of new counties was that Adam Washington Stroup left records in three different courthouses without his moving an inch.

            These were small mountain counties in North Georgia, and they were bordered on the north by the East Tennessee counties of Bradley and McMinn, an older and more “civilized” area, so that north Georgia’s frontier settlers went shopping in East Tennessee towns.

 AT HOME IN “A FOUR STATE JUNCTION”

            Trickum Crossroads was so near the junction of four southern states that, if a man stood on a projecting rock at Lookout Mountain in Cherokee County, N.C., he had his feet in North Carolina, and could point his right hand at Bradley and McMinn Counties, East Tennessee, and his left hand point at Pickens County, South Carolina. If the day was unusually clear, he could look across tiny Walker, Whitfield and Catoosa Counties, Georgia, and see on the far horizon, DeKalb County, Alabama.

STROUP KIN STAYED IN TOUCH

            The small size of these north Georgia counties helps explain that although the Stroups moved several times, the distances they traveled in miles was not great, a fact that helped the family stay in touch with each other.

            It was also custom for men to take long summer vacations, after their crops were in, going on horseback to visit family in other locations, summer visits that often served the double purpose of scouting for new land or business opportunities.

BROTHER ANDREW J. STROUP

            According to an old history, about this same time, Adam Washington’s brother, Andrew J. Stroup ran an iron furnace at Villanow, Whitfield County, Georgia.

 CATOOSA COUNTY

            A history of Catoosa County, Georgia, described Adam Washington Stroup as: “A blustery little Dutchman with a big voice and always under excitement.”

            This is a strikingly account similar to one in an old history of Cass County, Georgia, that described his brother Alexander, who also ran a tavern, as: “A feisty little Dutchman with a strong opinion on every subject”. 

            These two Stroup brothers seem alike in personality, body build and business ventures, and both followed the tavern trade of their maternal grandfather, Henry Dellinger of Lincoln County, North Carolina.

1860 CENSUS WHITFIELD CO., GA.

            On June 25, 1860, the 1860 census for Whitfield County, Georgia (page 514) listed Adam Washington’s household:

            Adam Stroup, farmer, age 60, b. N.C., wife, Matilda, age 35, b. Tenn.  Children in home:  Elizabeth Stroup, age 20, b. Ga.; James M. Stroup 18; Henry D. Stroup 24; Richard B. Eslinger 8, Lutricia Stroup, 3.

THE CIVIL WAR

            When the Civil War began, Adam Washington Stroup was 60 years old, so was not drafted.  His home at Trickum was close to Bradley County, East Tennessee, a heavily Union area.    

            His daughter Katie wrote, “My father saw many hardships as he was a Union man, and did not own any slaves as he did not believe that this was right.  Mother told me the Tories did us more harm than the Yankees.”

            Unfortunately, Adam talked so much about “being a Union man” that a gang of irate Confederates rode to his home and tarred and feathered him!

1863, A NEW BABY AND THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA

            On July 31, 1863, Matilda E. Stroup gave birth to her last child, who was given an old Stroup family name, Catherine, called “Catie”.  Two months later, the Battle of Chickamauga was fought, and Matilda stood at the fence in their yard, listening to the roar of cannon.

            Daughter Catie wrote, “My father owned stock of all kinds which were taken in exchange for broken down, worn-out mules.  He kept two fine horses in the cellar, which were found and taken.  My young brother, Bruce, would plow a mule during the day, and then hide him in a thicket swamp at night.”

            “Sometimes an army camped near the house, gathered the corn and fed it to their stock and burned down the rail fence from around (the field).  The officers would order my mother to cook their breakfast, which was cooked on a fireplace.”

            Mother made candles, spun and wove, and made all our clothes with her fingers.  The enemy  (Confederates) cut a web of jeans out of the loom that mother had woven... My parents hid their meat, (but) the enemy (Confederates) would search the house and everything would be taken.

            The Yankees put guards around the house to protect us.  As I was only two years old when the war ended, all I remember of the war was seeing soldiers, with guns on their shoulders, marching around the house.

 One night, when my father was sick, the (Confederate) soldiers put him behind a man on a horse and took him somewhere near Peavine, where I now live.  I don’t know how long he was gone or how he got back.  They wanted information about the mail at the Post Office.  Mother tried to keep them from taking him, fearing they would kill him.  He was a Union man.

AFTER THE WAR

             The Confederates gave southern tradesmen no choice but to accept their paper money in exchange for goods and services, so after the Civil War ended, Adam Washington Stroup’s grist mill, tavern, and general store were left holding thousands of dollars of worthless Confederate script.  Catie Stroup remembered these brightly colored pieces of paper.  The war left us with a lot of Confederate money, but it was no good then.  I remember playing with it for years.

             However, after the war, the Adam Washington Stroup (like his cousin, Silas Stroup in Buncombe County, N.C.) was far from penniless, having refused to convert the bulk of his “hard cash”, gold and silver coins, into either side’s paper money.  Catie said, “My mother carried gold in a pocket tied around her waist.”

            Adam Washington Stroup’s post-war prosperity was shown in several ways. Mother bought the first cook stove, a No. 7 step-stove and the first oil lamp, a brass one without a globe, in our community. She bought the second sewing machine in our neighborhood.  (These purchases were probably  made in Cleveland, Bradley County, Tennessee unless Adam special ordered them from a supplier to his own general store.  Matilda’s #7 step-stove was perhaps from a new iron stove works, Rome Eagle, in Rome, Georgia.)

1870 CENSUS, WHITFIELD CO., GA.

            The 1870 federal census for Whitfield Co., Ga. (p 50) showed:

            Adam Stroup, farmer, age 70, b. N.C., wife Matilda, 45, b. Tenn.

Richard Stroup, 16; Lutricia Stroup 12; Catherine Stroup 6. 

CATY’S RECOLLECTIONS

            Katie wrote memories of her childhood:  Taxes were given and received in our house, and court was held there.  After the war, I looked forward to tax officers coming as they brought me little fancy candies.  They would have me write some as they thought I was a good scribe for a child of seven years.

             My father owned a store building and kept the Post Office there.  He owned a blacksmith shop and a large barn with a built-in thrashing machine, run by horsepower.

LAST YEARS

            Adam was about 70 when he sat for his portrait, made by an itinerate photography.  He undoubtedly posed at his wife’s insistence, and from the scowl on his face was none to happy about it.  The resultant portrait shows a very small and wiry man, who looks alert and vigorous although elderly, with a very round, well fed abdomen.  He has the aquiline nose seen in many of the Stroups, and his face is cleanly shaven down to his chin, then wreathed by a short beard that hides his neck.  The total effect is similar to drawings of Santa’s elves (when grumpy from overwork).

            When he was 72 years old, in August 1872 Adam Washington Stroup died at Trickum.  He was buried in Dogwood Cemetery, but the local Confederates hated him so much that they completely destroyed his tombstone!

            Matilda E. Stroup, being 35 years his junior, lived until Nov. 28, 1898. 

ADAM WASHINGTON STROUP’S CHILDREN

            Adam Stroup had eleven children by his two wives.  By his first wife, Jane Peeler:

            1. Jacob Stroup, b. c1829, S.C., married Elizabeth J. Harris, b. 1819, S.C. d/o Mr. --- Harris & wife Rachel of South Carolina. 

                        Before the Civil War, Jacob Stroup moved to St. Louis, Mo., where he died in 1906, reputedly the father of two daughters.  (This Jacob, as the eldest son, was named for his paternal grandfather, following the Holland Dutch Name System.  However, he married outside the German community, so with him the “old county” tradition ended, used by five prior generations.)

                        (The 1830 census showed Adam Stroup’s household with only 1 male under 5 years, listing made before the Aug. 8th birth of their second son.

            2. Daniel “Peeler” Stroup (Aug. 8, 1830 - July 24, 1892) b. Habersham Co., Ga. (His first name, Daniel, was in honor of his maternal grandfather, Daniel Peeler, following the Holland Dutch Name System.)  He operated Peeler’s Mill near Ringgold, Georgia.

                        Peeler Stroup m. Aug 7, 1848 Rhoda Elizabeth “Rudy” Huskey (Oct. 25, 1835 S.C. - Dec. 1, 1911). He died July 24, 1892, buried Boynton cemetery, Ringgold, Ga.

            3. Alexander Anthony Stroup, b. 1835, Ga.; in the 1850 census, was listed at age 14 in his parent’s home in Whitfield, Ga.

                        (Alex’s father, Adam at this point also stopped using the Dutch Name System, so that, instead of naming his 3rd son for his eldest brother, he named this son for his younger full brother, to whom he was especially close, Alexander.

            4. Mary F. Stroup, b c1834 Ga.  The 1850 census showed Mary aged 16 in her parent’s home.

                         (If the Name System were followed, this daughter would have been named Elizabeth for her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth “Betsy” Dellinger, but the full name of Elizabeth Dellinger has not been discovered, so she may have been Mary Elizabeth.)

                          Mary F. Stroup’s full name was probably Mary Frances Stroup.  (The youngest daughter of Jacob Stroup, b 1724 was “Fanny Stroup” b c1780. “Fanny” is the nickname for German “Fronica” (English: Veronica).

            5. Aaron Washington Stroup, b. c1838 Ga.; aged 12, 1850 census; named for his maternal uncle, Aaron Washington Peeler.

            6. Sara Elizabeth Stroup, b. c1841, Ga.; 1850 census, aged 9.

            7. James M. Stroup, b c1844, Ga.; 1850 census, aged 6.

            8. Henry D. Stroup, b. c1848, Ga.; 1850 census, aged 2.  The 1880 census showed Henry D. Stroup living with a family named Hatfield.

Adam Stroup’s stepson, Richard Bruce Eslinger, b Nov. 2, 1852, was either adopted or merely took the name Stroup.  The 1860 census listed him as Richard B. Eslinger, aged 8, but the 1870 census listed him as Richard B. Stroup, age 16.  He married Oct. 2, 1881 Florence Lowe, and died in Arlington, Texas.  His children, all of whom lived in Texas, were also called “Stroup”, instead of “Eslinger”.

                        Known children of Richard Bruce Eslinger (aka Stroup): 1. Ethel Stroup (alive 1965); 2. Cora Stroup of Arlington, Tx. m. Mr. Timms; Carl Stroup of Dallas, TX; Maggie Stroup of Fort Worth m. Mr. Smith; Harley Stroup of Arlington Tx, m. Jack Mauldin; and Ruby Stroup of Arlington, Tx. m. L. C. Mauldin.

            By his second wife, Matilda Eslinger, Adam Stroup had:

            9. Letishia Adeline “Addie” Stroup (Nov. 30, 1857 - Oct. 4, 1934); 1850 census Whitfield Co., aged 3.  She married David Cathcart, died Oct. 4, 1934,and was buried in Forest Hills cemetery, Chattanooga.  Addie Stroup’s son, Arthur Cathcart, lived St. Elmo, Chattanooga, Tennessee.

            10. Catherine “Katie” Strain Stroup (July 31, 1863 - Aug 14, 1963) born Georgia was named for her father’s eldest sister, Catherine (Stroup) who married James Strain, who had helped raise little Adam after his mother died.            

                        On Dec. 21, 1880, Catie Stroup married John Adam Graham (Jan. 2, 1854 - June 26, 1927).  When she was 94 years old she wrote “A History of My Old Home in Whitfield County, Georgia”  Catie lived to be 100 years old, and died on August 14 , 1963, buried Rock Springs Cemetery, Rock Springs, Georgia.  .

SOURCES

            1. A History of My Old Home in Whitfield County, Georgia,  by Catherine Strain (Stroup) Graham.

            2.  Adam’s dates, life and children’s names are from a family Bible, information given by Daniel Stroup’s daughter, Frances Jane Stroup, g.g.mother of Kay H. Bowman, 6001 Deer Trace, Nashville, TN 37211, who sent this information.

            3. Our Kin, Laban M. Hoffman of Dallas, N.C., published 1909, p 206.

            4. Patronymic Name System: The Palatinate Immigrant.

            5. York County, S.C. land records for Jacob Stroup begin in 1814, after his return as a Captain in the War of 1812.

            6. A History of Walker County, Ga., p 483.  Information abstracted by Frances H. Watts, 2450 Crawford Rd., Blairsville, GA 30512, who also supplied the census records.)

            7. A History of Catoosa County., Ga., Bill Clark. Information extracted by Kay Bowman

Jacob Jr.’ birth date from Bible records; relationship to Adam proved by a power-of-attorney given by Jacob to his son-in-law James Strain, filed Lincoln Co., N.C. courthouse, regarding a tract of land that Jacob Stroup of Union Co., S.C. bought from his father Adam Stroup of Lincoln Co., N.C.

Before 1850, brother's Andrew J. and Jacob D. Stroup moved to Illinois where they set up a sawmill; when the Civil War came, both enlisted in the Union Army, perhaps another reason that Adam Washington was so outspokenly “a Union man”, these being his full brothers and closer to him in every way than his half brother Moses whose mill made cannon for the C.S.A., and whose sons were in the Confederate Army.

Although there may be some truth to these disparaging descriptions, there may also be some bias in these accounts written after the Civil War by historians about two Stroup tavern owners who loudly and vehemently supported of the Union, opinions at odds with historians who had Confederate sympathies.

Katie was only seven when her father died, and her mother was his 2nd wife, so it seems that neither of them were aware that Adam Stroup had owned 3 slaves in 1830, he having apparently changed his mind, and, by their day, was adamantly opposed to slavery.