GEORGE PETER TROUTMAN (1741-1820)
The life of Peter Troutman, although more even than Michael's paralleled it in migration, settlement, and purpose. Peter lived a few miles east of Michael, near Creagerstown, Maryland, which was built about 1765 and supplanted old Monocacy, the oldest settlement in that section of the state. Peter's landholdings acquired by purchase and through his wife's inheritance were considerable. In 1764 he bought the 100-acre tract, Mohawk, which lay along Fishing Creek. Mohawk was patented to John Leonard Troutman in 1754 and Peter owned it until he migrated to Kentucky in 1791.[39] ...
... Peter Troutman (1-13-1741:12-15-1820) married Anna Maria Miller (12-10-1740:1-13-1819), daughter of Abraham and Frances Miller, in Maryland about 1763. Eight of their children survived them. ...
... Like Michael, Peter bore arms in the American Revolution. He was a corporal in 1775 in the Frederick County militia in Maryland, in Captain Robert Wood's Company.[42] The church records of Peter's family are more numerous than Michael's. Peter was a trustee of the joint Lutheran and Presbyterian Church at Creagerstown in 1787, when a site was purchased for a new building. The new meeting house was to take the place of the one built in 1774 by Christian Shryock and other trustees to accommodate jointly the Lutheran and Presbyterian congregations.[43] Peter and his family may never have worshiped in the
proposed building as it was not completed until the year he went to Kentucky. Among the entries in the register of the Evangelical Lutheran Church at Frederick are the marriages of Peter's son John Jacob, and daughter Phrene, and the christening of his children Catherine, Leonard, Anna, Rebecca and Daniel. And there is one other entry of interest. Abigail, daughter of Anthony, a free Negro, and Ann, Negro of Peter Troutman, was baptized June 30, 1786, and Peter and his wife Anna Maria were the sponsors.
The migration of Peter Troutman's family to Kentucky was piecemeal. The older children led the way in 1790, and Peter and Anna Maria and the others arrived in Bourbon County in 1791. Preparatory to leaving Maryland, Peter sold six tracts of land, including Mohawk, Miller's Chance, Loss Gained, and Resurvey of Puzzle, to John Cairns, May 14, 1791, for 950 pounds.[44]
In the autumn two boats bore the family and their possessions down the Ohio as far as Maysville, where they disembarked and went overland to Paris. Peter operated a tanyard in Bourbon County for a while.[45] In the spring of 1793, he bought land along David's Fork of the Elkhorn in Fayette County where he farmed and ran a large gristmill. Land records indicate that he and his children lived near each other in the northern part of Fayette County and across the line in Bourbon County. Peter's stone house stood about midway between Paris and Lexington. It fell in ruins about forty years ago and all that remains of it is a large lock and key, the heirloom of a great-great-granddaughter, Miss Lorena T. Lawell. A grove of trees marks the site of the home, and some of the old stone fences still divide the rolling bluegrass meadows. Peter and many members of his family are buried in the family plot about an eighth of a mile from the home.
[39] Deed book, Frederick County, Maryland, J, pp. 357-358.
[40] T. J. C. Williams, op. cit., p. 24; Will book, Frederick County, Maryland, A-l, pp. 55ff.
[41] Will book, Fayette County, Kentucky, E, p. 287.
[42] Maryland Historical Magazine, XI, p. 53.
[43] Deed book, Frederick County, Maryland, WR-7, p. 138; V, p. 697.
[44] Deed book, Frederick County, Maryland, WR-10, p. 49.
[45] Draper MSS, op. cit.
