Stroud or Strode? His home Fort.

Where is this fort? We run into a letter Colonel George Washington writes to Captain Joshua Lewis 24 Oct 1757, asking him to consider Swearingen's request to staff a fort nearby.

GW asks Captain Joshua Lewis to consider splitting up his company to have some of his men staff the settlement fort at Stroud's (Strode's).

GW might have spelled the name wrong. Founders Online suggests the name should be Strode.

We are hoping some local historians of this area might know.

We have a map showing our guess of general area.

We welcome any suggestions, corrections, additions, sources for where this fort was.

See our map here:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1trymtX5rGYDjQ_tYJUvv63wqc1M&ll=39.48239820000003%2C-77.94844870000001&z=18

Touch or click on blue star icon. On mobile a side appears at bottom. Touch side bar to expand. And on laptop, click on icon, and side bar appears on left.

See Norman Baker's report

of information on Strode, below.

And below that is Colonel George Washington's letter.

More will be added to this story later today or tonight. Compiled by Jim Moyer 10/24/2021.

Page 146 of French & Indian War in Frederick County, Virginia: With the Forts of the French & Indian War on the Northwestern Frontier. By Norman L. Baker published by Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society, 199 pages, extensively illustrated, and indexed, 2000-2008, newest reprint edition of 2016.

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From George Washington to Joshua Lewis, 24 October 1757

To Joshua Lewis [c.24 October 1757]

Sir

I am strongly importun’d by Capn Swearengen

to place a small Command at Strouds Fort1

if you think it for the Interest of the Service &

can possibly spare the Men

yr complying Wt. these requests will be agreeable to me

I’m still off opinion that

Dividg yr Command into small Parties

will be better than Keepg any No. of them together—I

send you this Inclos’d to Cap⟨n⟩ Swearengen

who I have Directed to consult wt. you on the Subject.2

ADf, DLC:GW.

Founders Online Footnotes:

GW wrote this undated draft of a letter to Joshua Lewis (unnamed)

along with his speech to the Cherokee (see GW to Dinwiddie, 24 Oct.)

on the verso of a letter to him from Lewis Stephens, 20 Sept. 1757.

Footnote 1.

Stroud’s fort may have been the new house of John Stroud (Strode)

built to replace one burned in 1756 in an Indian raid.

Stroud’s house or Strode's House is known as the Stone House Mansion and is near Martinsburg near Evans’s fort.

The link above is updated due to an email by Jay Strode investigating his ancestors. This blog has been updated 4/2/2024.

GW, however, may have been referring to some other house belonging to one of several Strouds who had land in the area.

Footnote 2.

This may have been the letter from Atty. Gen. Peyton Randolph to Thomas Swearingen enclosed in Dinwiddie to GW, 19 Oct., and received by GW on 24 Oct. 1757.

Source:

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-05-02-0015

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Sources on the names in that letter:

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Strode (Stroud) :

Map link of the Stone House Mansion - built by Capt John Stode (Stroud in some documents)

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1trymtX5rGYDjQ_tYJUvv63wqc1M&femb=1&ll=39.397801099999995%2C-77.91844720000002&z=18

http://www.vanmetre.com/National%20Historic/stone_house_mansion.htm

Capt John Strode:

He was the son of Edward Strode and Eleanor Shepard. He married Mary Polly Boyle on November 25, 1758 in Culpepper County, Virginia. He built the pioneer fort, Strode's Station, in Clark County, Kentucky in 1779. It was attacked on March 1, 1781.

BIRTH11 Jan 1729

Berkeley County, West Virginia, USA

DEATH18 Aug 1805 (aged 76)

Winchester, Clark County, Kentucky, USA

BURIAL

Strode Station Cemetery

Clark County, Kentucky, USA

Source:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7743931/john-strode

Edward Stroud was born about 1695.

He married Eleanor Shepherd. She was the daughter of William Shepard and Sarah Cochran.

Susannah Stroud (1721), Edward Stroud (1723), Letitia (Letty) Stroud (1725, married Jacob Van Meter), James Stroud (1727), John Stroud (1729, married Mary Boyle), and. Jeremiah Stroud (1732).

Source:

https://www.anamericanfamilyhistory.com/Stroud%20Family/Stroud%20Edward%201695.html

Mary (Polly) Strode formerly Boyle

Born about 22 Feb 1734 in Berkeley, West Virginia

Daughter of James Boyle and Sarah (Swearingen) Boyle

[sibling(s) unknown]

Wife of John Strode Sr — married 1758 [location unknown

Source:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Boyle-574

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Swearingen:

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Founders Online Footnote:

Van Swearingen (1719–1788)

lived at Shepherdstown, or Mecklenburg, at Swearingen’s ferry on the Potomac in northeastern Frederick County. See the map, “The Virginia Frontier, 1754–1758: Frederick and Hampshire Counties,” in Papers, Colonial Series, 3:216–17. Swearingen at this time was county sheriff. In 1777 he became county lieutenant of Berkeley County (created from Frederick in 1772) in the place of GW’s brother Samuel.

He was a brother of the Thomas Swearingen (d. 1760)

who was one of the two sitting members of the House of Burgesses from Frederick County at the time of the burgess election in December 1755 when GW ran a distant third in the county’s poll and, again, at the election in July 1758 when Thomas Swearingen ran a distant third and GW led the poll by a wide margin.

Info on the Swearingen family of Shepherdstown area:

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-07-02-0021

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Swearingen-Shepherd_House

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Joshua Lewis:

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Info on Captain Joshua Lewis:

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1From George Washington to Joshua Lewis, 18 September 1755

Founders Online Footnote:

In Nov. 1754 Joshua Lewis, who had “served his Time in the Navy,” was appointed “Lieut. of the Train of Artillery” in the Virginia forces (Dinwiddie to Horatio Sharpe, 15 Nov. [1754], ViHi: Dinwiddie Papers). He was made a captain in the Virginia Regiment in Sept. 1755, and he commanded its 9th company. He was among the Virginians ordered to South Carolina in April 1757 to protect that colony from an anticipated French attack. Beginning in June 1757, Lewis did garrison duty at Maidstone and various other fortifications on the Virginia Frontier. Wishing to return to the navy, he resigned from the regiment in April 1758.