French Strother was an eighteenth-century planter, politician, lawyer and judge in Virginia, nicknamed "the Fearless" for his fiery rhetoric during debates in the American Revolutionary War.
Early life
Born in King George County, Virginia in 1730, the eldest son of James Lawrence Strother and his wife, the former Margaret French. His great-grandfather William Strother had made a will in Richmond County, Virginia in 1700. Young French Strother moved to Falmouth, Virginia with his parents as a boy when his father received a job inspecting tobacco for export from the area. When his father died in 1761, French Strother inherited his estate.
Career
He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practiced law principally in Culpeper County. French Strother lived on a large estate on the Culpeper/Stevensburg Road, owned slaves, and served on the vestry of St. Mark's Parish.. Strother also served as Presiding Justice of the Culpeper County Court for most of his adult life. His normal honorific of "Colonel" reflects his years of service leading the county militia. He also was one of the trustees of the Stevensburg Academy. French Strother represented Culpeper County in the Virginia General Assembly for more than 25 years, including in the Virginia Convention of 1776. He was one of Culpeper County's two delegates for 15 years in the Virginia House of Delegates, serving alongside first Birkett Davenport, then Henry Field, Jr., George Weatherall, Henry Hill, Henry Field, JamesPendleton, Henry Fry, Joel Early, David Jamison, Jr., and finally William Madison. In 1788 Culpeper county voters elected French Strother to represent them in the Virginia Ratification Convention, where he allied with Patrick Henry and George Mason and voted against the proposed United States Constitution—although the convention as a whole ratified it. Strother was a political opponent of James Madison, and also once defeated by James Monroe. Beginning in 1791 or 1792 until his death, Culpeper County voters elected Strother to the Virginia Senate, where he served part-time from 1792-1800. Francis T. Brooke was elected to succeed him.
French Strother died, aged 70, in Fredericksburg on July 3, 1799, on his way home to Culpeper from the Virginia Senate session in Richmond. He is buried in the cemetery of St. George's Church in Fredericksburg. The family continued to use his name for years. Several of his descendants became U.S. Congressman, including his son George Strother, who would later move with his family and slaves to Missouri. His grandson James French Strother continued the family's political tradition, and practiced law in Culpeper as well as represented it in the Virginia House of Delegates, becoming its speaker as well as serving as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1850, then winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Whig. His great-grandson, also James French Strother would represent West Virginians in the U.S. House of Representatives. Another grandson Daniel French Slaughter would also represent Culpeper County in the Virginia Senate. A descendant, Jane Chapman Slaughter would become the first woman to receive a PhD. from the University of Virginia, become a noted genealogist, and donate her papers to the University of Virginia Library. Several of French Strother's descendants served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil war, including C.S.A. Brig. Gen. James E. Slaughter, a VMI graduate who had served with distinction in the Mexican American War, then fought for the Confederacy and claimed never to have surrendered, but fired the last shots of the Confederacy in Texas, crossed into Mexico for years, the made his home in Mobile, Alabama and died in New Orleans, Louisiana.
