Person:David Strother (1)

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10 Gen. David Hunter Strother (Elizabeth Pendleton Hunter, David, David, Hugh, Andrew) was born September 26, 1816, at Martinsburg, West Virginia (then Virginia). The following sketch of his life is contributed by Mrs. Strother of Charlestown. He married, May 16, 1849, Ann Doyne Wolfe, and had by her one daughter, Emily, who married John Brisbane Walker, of Elizabeth, Pennsylvania. Ann Wolfe died in 1859, at Martinsburg. On May 6, 1861, General Strother married his cousin, Mary Elliott Hunter, of Charlestown, West Virginia (see Number 19), by whom he had two sons, David Hunter, who died in infancy, and John, who married Janie Ellison Porter, of Columbus, Georgia.

From infancy, General Strother’s tastes were artistic, and, at the age of three, after witnessing the destruction of his father’s house by fire, he drew a picture of the scene in which the portraits of those present at the event were easily recognized. At the age of twelve he commenced the study of art at Philadelphia, under Professor Samuel B. Morse, inventor of the electric telegraph, and later attended Washington College, at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. In 1838 he travelled in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, then the Far West, and in 1841 went to Europe to continue his art studies, arriving in Paris in time to witness the second funeral of Napoleon I. From France, he went to Italy, and lived for some years in Florence, Rome, and Naples, returning to the United States, in 1844. After some local success as a portrait painter, he abandoned the brush for the pencil, and illustrated a number of books, among others, “Swallow Barn,” written by his kinsman, John P. Kennedy.

Endeavoring to interest the editors of Harper’s Magazine in his sketches of American subjects, he was requested to write articles to accompany them, and his initial series, published first in the magazine, and later in book form, under the title of “Virginia Illustrated,” won for him an established reputation in the literary world. This series was followed by others, entitled, “North Carolina Illustrated,” “A Winter in the South,” “A Summer in New England,” “The Mountains,” “Personal Recollections of the War,” and a number of shorter sketches, all of which appeared between 1857 and 1877, and rendered his nom de plume of “Porte Crayon,” a household word among the readers of the time.

In 1861 he entered the Union army and was assigned to the Topographical Corps with the rank of Captain, serving under Patterson in the Shenandoah Valley under McClellan, at Ball’s Bluff, and again in the Valley, on the staff of General Banks, In 1862 he served on the staff of Pope in the Second Bull Run campaign, and on that of McClellan at South Mountain and Antietam. In this year he was commissioned Lieutenant Colonel, Third West Virginia Cavalry. In 1863 he was again on Bank’s staff, during the Tesche campaign, and at Port Hudson. Returning north, he was assigned to duty as Inspector General of Cavalry, under General Kelly, with headquarters at Cumberland, Maryland. In 1864 he served in the Shenandoah Valley on Sigel’s staff, and later on that of his kinsman and namesake, General David Hunter, on the Lynchburg raid. His active services terminated when Hunter was relieved from command by Sheridan, and in 1865, he was mustered out with the rank of Brevet Brigadier General of Volunteers. In 1866 he was Adjutant General of the State of Virginia but soon retired to private life, making his home at Berkeley Springs, West Virginia.

In 1897 he was appointed by President Hayes Consul-General at the City of Mexico, and was invited to report on the political, as well as on the commercial condition of the country. His reports were instrumental in inducing the United States authorities to fully recognize the Diaz government, then only recently established, and since proven to be the only stable government ever enjoyed by the Mexican Republic. He returned to the United States in 1885 and lived in Charlestown, West Virginia, until his death, March 8, 1888.

Children:

(By first wife):

i Emily, married John Brisbane Walker, editor of the Cosmopolitan Magazine.

(By second wife):

11 ii John, married Jane Ellison Porter.

William M. Clemens. Hunter Family Records: An Account of the First American Settlers and Colonial Families of the Name Hunter, and Other Genealogcial and Historical Data, Mosly New and Original Material, Including Early Wills and Marriages of Heretofore Unpublished. (New York: William M. Clemens, 1914), Page 4, 5.
Andrew Hunter, of County Londonderry, Ireland, was born in 1640, and it was the family tradition that his birthplace was the ancestral home of the Hunters of Hunterston in Scotland.
His son, Hugh, married Isabella Semple, and their son was David Hunter.
David Hunter, lived in York county, Pennsylvania. He married Martha Mcllhenny in 1745. He was a captain of a York county Company in the French and Indian War, and a member of the expedition against Fort Duquesne. Capt. Hunter mysteriously disappeared in the summer of 1776, and his family never saw or heard from him again. His fate was not known until nearly a century afterward, when, on the destruction of an old house in the Valley of Virginia by Union soldiers, a paper was discovered concerning him.

It was given to his great-grandson, Captain David Hunter Strother, and was found to be a writ of habeas corpus, issued in the Name of King George III Rex, by Authority of the Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, driecting the sheriff of Berkely County, Virginia [ie. Berkeley County, West Virginia] to bring the body of David Hunter to the captiol at Williamsburg, Virginia. Captain Hunter was a patriot, and Lord Dunmore, last of the English Governors of Virginia, was notorious for his cruelties and injustice to the colonists.

Captain David Hunter bore the arms of the family of Calderwood, Scotland [ie. Calderwood, East Kilbride],
Shield: "Vert, three dogs of the chase courant argent collared or; on a chief of the second as many hunting horns of the first, stringed gules.
Crest: A greyhound sejant argent collared or
Motto: Cursum perficio. [Latin]; I have completed the course.

The descendants of this line of the family are distinguished in the annals of Virginia, and allied with the Washington, Dandridge, Spottswood, and many other historic families.