Eli Stroup

Born- abt 1801

At- Hoyles Creek, Lincoln County, North Carolina

Died- aft 1863 

At- Unknown

Buried- Unknown

(1) Married- Mary Cloninger

Marriage Date- abt 1819 

Born- abt 1802 Lincoln County, North Carolina

Died- 15 Feb 1829

Buried- Unknown

Eli Stroup was born in 1801, twin to Ann Stroup, and son of Philip Stroup, Sr., and wife, Mary “Molly” Addleman. Eli had a brother, Jonas, who was close to him in age, and they stayed in touch all their lives.

ELI’S FIRST MARRIAGE

              Eli married young, probably about the time of the 1820 Federal Census, early marriages being normal in rural communities where early starts on new farms and families were preferred to “keep the young folks out of trouble”.

      No record has been found for Eli’s first marriage, and the date and name of his teenaged bride have been forgotten. The lack of a County issued Marriage Bond and License probably means she was Lutheran, as were many of the Stroups of this era, there being few other churches available.  So, Eli’s first marriage was probably in a local Lutheran Church by Publication of the Banns, public announcements of the Intent to Marry on several successive Sundays.

      Banns marriages were legal at this time in North Carolina, and popular because they cost one fifth as much marriages with Licenses and Bonds.  The drawback (for later generations) is that the only records of Banns Marriages were kept in Church Parish Registers, which for Lutherans, were written in German, and are now inaccessible.

WHERE DID EPHRAIM GET HIS NAME?

      On August 26, 1821, when he was twenty-one years old, Eli’s first child, Ephraim, was born. Eli’s use of the name “Ephraim” for his son may indicate that the boy’s mother was a Miss Black, because this was a common name among the Lincoln County Blacks, but the Stroups, who repeated the same names in every generation and honored alternately paternal and maternal relatives, never before or after used “Ephraim”. 

      Naming a male infant in this time and place was a serious business that did not follow the later fads of naming for friends, neighbors, politicians, literary figures, etc.  The Germans of old Lincoln were pious and serious farmers who almost exclusively used Biblical names.  Some were so religious that one child would be given the names of several saints for extra protection.

      Most of the Lincoln County Stroups were still following a Holland Dutch Name System where children were named in order of their birth, alternating between paternal and maternal relatives, a strict pattern that honored first the grandparents, then the eldest uncle, etc., in descending order by age.

      However, if Eli (who was not his father’s eldest, and therefore not bound to the Holland Dutch name system) was using a completely different set of German Lutheran customs, perhaps those of his wife’s family, his eldest son may have been named for her brother or another of her close male relatives who would also be the infant’s godfather, and thereafter duty bound to take care of the child should its birth parents was not able to do so.     

      Eli and his first wife are believed to have had several daughters, one of whom (Polly?) reputedly married and lived in Gastonia, N.C. where her husband worked in (or owned) a cotton mill.

1830 CENSUS AND SECOND MARRIAGE

      Eli’s wife apparently died c1828-29 before the 1830 census was taken, at which time he had no wife and several minor children. A young widower with children would either need a female relative to move into his home to help tend his children, but Eli does not seem to have owned his own farm at this time, so he and at least two children had probably moved into the household of a close relative who has not been identified. 

         When Eli was about twenty-nine years old he remarried, shown by Lincoln County Bond and License dated Feb. 15, 1830, groom Eli Stroup, bride Elizabeth Shetley, Bondsman, Drury G. Abernathy. (If custom was followed, Abernathy was related to the bride or groom.)  

      [Note that Eli married in February, apparently before the 1830 census was taken, so that when it was made he and his bride (and his children) might be in the household of an Ephraim Black, the Shetleys or the Abernathys.]

FATHER’S DEATH AND WILL

               Philip Stroup, Sr., was prosperous, but his 1836 will he left his son Eli only a cow and calf, making it almost certain Eli received his portion of his father’s property at his first marriage.

      In 1837 when Philip Stroup, Sr. died, his will stipulated that when his youngest child came of age that his farm be sold and the proceeds divided among his heirs, a division that may have occurred c1851-53, because his youngest (Dicy or Henry?) was about 12 or 13 when he died.  Philip Stroup, Sr. had so many his heirs that they could buy more land by moving westward into a less populated area where land was cheaper, i.e., in Mississippi.

      “Eli Stroup and Elizabeth Shetley moved to Tippah or Benton County, Mississippi.”  The departure date for one group’s departure, from lore, was “1838”.

1840 CENSUS

              When the 1840 Federal Census was made for North Carolina, Eli’s 19 year old son Ephraim was no longer in his father's home, and had either begun his migration south or was living with relatives the old home area, perhaps the Blacks, because, as noted previously, his given name was common with them but not the Stroups.

       However, by the 1850 census Eli was in Cass Co., Georgia, apparently having come here initially to find a job in the iron works owned by his relatives Jacob and Moses Stroup.   Young Ephraim also may have moved to North Georgia before 1840, as did many other young people seeking employment.  Gaston County families formed small villages around the six iron works owned by the Stroups in South Carolina and Georgia, and there was considerable movement back and forth between these interrelated communities as people either sought work or moved back home.

MIGRATIONS INTO TO MISSISSIPPI

       Philip Stroup, Jr., was in an early group of Hoyle’s Creek relatives and neighbors that moved further south because his son, Noah Stroup, was born about 1846 in Mississippi.  Ephraim Stroup left N.C. sometime after Dec. 9, 1849 when he had a daughter born there.

1850 CENSUS, GEORGIA

      Federal Census, Cass (now Bartow) County, Ga., September 30, 1850, Page 110, Enumerator: Alexander Stroup

LINCOLN COUNTY MIGRANTS IN NORTH GEORGIA, 1850

      Most (or all) of the families listed on this Georgia census page can be traced back to the Hoyle’s Creek area of old Lincoln (now Gaston) County, N.C.  By 1850, they apparently were living near their jobs in the Stroup Iron Works built by Lincoln County iron masters, Jacob Stroup (b. 1771) and his son, Moses Stroup, (b. 1794 N.C.).  Jacob Stroup’s last foundry on Stamp Creek of the Etowah River near (modern) Cartersville, Ga.

      These transplanted Carolinian’s Georgia jobs included hewing stone to build blast furnaces, mining coal and cutting wood to fuel furnaces.  Some “bucked” (tossed from furnace to waiting buckets) red-hot ingots that were caught about six feet away by blacksmiths who hammering the hot iron on anvils and passed on to other waiting workers.

       It’s probable that some (or all) of these families began working for Jacob Stroup at his first iron foundry at Iron Station, Lincoln County, then migrated in 1814 with him to Blacksburg, S.C., then on into Georgia, following the work at the foundry. 

      James Abernathy, age 32, woodcutter, b. N.C.  (Probably son of Nathan below)

      Nathan Abernathy, age 60, invalid, b. N.C. (Nathan Abernathy signed his marriage bond with an X on Jan. 28, 1808 when he married Eve Cline in Lincoln County, N.C.)

            Eve Abernathy, 45, wife, b. N.C.

      Patrick Fox, stonemason, 59, b. N.C.  (Patrick Fox had Lincoln County marriage bond dated Oct. 6, 1825 to marry Hannah Rabb.)

            Hannah Fox, 52, wife, b. N.C.

            Thomas Fox, 21, son, blacksmith.

      Patrick Fox, Jr., woodcutter, 20, b. N.C.

      William Sumy, collier (coal miner), age 50, b. N.C.  (William Summey had a Lincoln County, N.C. marriage bond dated Aug 28, 1826 to marry Betsy Abernathy, and “Betsy” is a nickname for Elizabeth.)

               Elizabeth Sumy, 42, wife, b. N.C.

      (The Summey children’s ages range from 23 to 2, and from birthplaces, this family came to Georgia c1847-1848.)

      Eli Stroup, age 49, “laborer” (a farmer on leased or mortgaged land) b. N.C.

      Elizabeth (Shetley) Stroup, wife, 30, b. N.C. c1820.

            Alexander Stroup, son, age 15, b. N.C. (Eli was still in N.C. in 1835)

      Jesse Ash, 20, collier (coal miner), b. N.C. (perhaps related to William & Sally Spencer Ash who in 1823 married in Lincoln Co., N.C.)

      D. D. Baker, 37, “farmer”, b. S.C. c1813 (a “farmer” owned his land free and clear).  [Perhaps born in Blacksburg, Union Co., S.C. to an N.C. father?]

      Daniel Abernathy, 29, woodcutter, b. N.C.    

MOSES STROUP, 1850

      Iron Master Moses Stroup, born 1794 in North Carolina, was a leading pioneer iron manufacturer in the South, partner to his father, Jacob Stroup (b. 1771) who died at Stamp Creek, Cass County, shortly before this 1850 census.

MOSES STROUP, 1850 GEORGIA

      1850 Federal Census, Cass County, Ga., p 155, dwelling #783, family #790:

      Moses Stroup, 56, b. N.C. (c1794), manufacturer, $3,000 real estate.

            Permela Stroup, 37, wife, b. S.C. (nee Permelia Richards)

            Susan W. Stroup, dau., b. S.C.

            Alonzo A. Stroup, dau.,, b. S.C.

            Sarah Stroup, dau., b. S.C.

            Amelia Stroup, dau., b. S.C.

            Mary E. Stroup, dau., b. Ga.

            Henry Stroup, son., b. Ga.

            Andrew M. Stroup, son, b. Ga.

            Margaret Stroup, dau., b. Ga.

            Nathaniel Stroup 28 b Tenn. (not his son, but living in the home of Moses Stroup)

      Listed in the census next door to Moses Stroup:

            Sarah Stroup, 63, b. S.C. c1787, with 2 younger women in her home.

BROTHER’S DEATH, 1853

      “The brother to whom Eli was so close throughout life, Jonas Stroup, died in 1853 (in Lincoln/Gaston County, N.C.) And is buried at Christ Lutheran Church, Stanley, near the old home places.

MISSISSIPPI KIN

      Philip Stroup, Sr.’s relatives who moved to Mississippi included:

            His widowed second wife, Catherine (Master) Stroup.

            Son Philip Stroup, Jr.  

            Grandson Ephraim Stroup.

            Daughter Joanna “Joan” (Stroup) Phillips and husband, Silas H. Phillips.

            Daughter Rosanna (Stroup) Phillips and husband Isaiah W. Phillips.  (Silas H. and Isaiah Phillips were sons of John & Rebecca Phillips of Lincoln County, N.C.)

ELI STROUP'S KNOWN CHILDREN

      1. Ephraim Stroup, b. 26 Aug 1821, Stanley Creek, Lincoln County, N.C.

      2. Mary “Polly” Stroup, b c1819 - 25, stayed in Lincoln and married a Mr. Cloninger, cotton mill owner of Gastonia.

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