| Notes |
- According to Dictionary of Scottish Immigrants to the U.S.A. by Donald Whyte, our Robert Strayhorn was born in Ayrshire, Scotland.
- According to the Biographical History of Chester and Delaware Counties by Cope and Ashmeade (the copy I have seen was entitled Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Chester and Delaware Counties -Ed) published in 1901, Vol 2, page 394, "Robert Strahorn was a Scottish dissenter, who left his native land in order to escape religious persecution, and landed in America in April 1775, about the time of the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. He enlisted three times in the Continental Army, serving through the entire war, and never receiving a wound. He participated in some of the most memorable events which marked the struggle for independence, and was a sharer in many of the greatest of the hardships which fell to the lot of the devoted patriot army. He accompanied Washington when the latter, on that never-to-be-forgotten Christmas night, crossed the Delaware in order to surprise the Hessians at Trenton, and he shared all the sufferings of the winter at Valley Forge. Robert brought his two sons, Nathaniel and Samuel with him to America in 1775." (Most arrival records recorded males over sixteen years old, so Margaret was likely not recorded -Ed.)
Robert "heroically ate rats with Washington at Valley Forge." from Ninety Years of Boyhood the autobiography of Robert E. Strahorn, Robert's great-great-grandson.
"I also have a Robert Strayhorn who was born in 1733 in Scotland and had two sons Nathaniel and Samuel who were born in Ireland before emigrating to the America's in 1775, where he settled in the New London, Chester, PA area. Nathaniel married a lady by the name of Olympia and had 5 children Hannah, Samuel, Thomas, Elizabeth, and Peter. Of these folks, I have little else other that Nathaniel married in Montgomery CO PA. Robert's son Samuel, had descendants who settled in Ceder Rapids IA, Hardin CO IA, and other places in IA, as well as in New London PA, and Dakota territories as well as Cecil CO MD. This line contains 157 people and it is my belief that Eva Armitage compiled it." -Ed Reynolds, Rootsweb Archiver > STRAYHORN > 2000 > 0962906061
- The timing and circumstances of Robert's residence in Ireland are uncertain, as Ireland was not mentioned in either the Cope and Ashmeade nor the Donald Whyte volumes. And yet Robert's son Samuel Strayhorn listed his place of birth as 'Ireland' in the 1850 US Census. We have found a reference to Robert in Ireland, in a 1761 newspaper article in Belfast. This article places Robert in Antrim, a port city on the northeast of Ireland near Scotland. Robert's occupation was listed as a 'weaver' when he arrived in Philadelphia, and linen weaving had been a robust industry in Ireland, but was in decline by the mid 1700s due to competition from less expensive mechanized American cotton weaving. There are also records of a Joseph Strayhorn in Antrim, so one might expect the two to have been related.
- We have personally examined the church records in Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland and we believe that the Robert Straehorn born in 1731 and his wife Margaret Ross were not our Robert Strayhorn family, notwithstanding many internet claims to the contrary. The births of our Robert's children were interspersed timewise with this Robert Straehorn's children, but were not recorded in the Ayr church records. For this to have been our Robert would have required a second wife in Ireland during this same period, an unlikely scenario.
- 1779 Tax Exoneration List in Whitemarsh Ward, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1781 Pennsylvania Census in Upper Dublin, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as 'Weaver'
1783 Pennsylvania Census in Horsham, Montgomery, Pennsylvania
1789 Pennsylvania Census in Horsham, Montgomery, Pennsylvania
1790 US Census in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania with nine household members.
1793 Pennsylvania Census in Buckingham, Bucks, Pennsylvania, one the owners of a distillery
1793 September Taxable List in East Whiteland, Chester, Pennsylvania
1800 Pennsylvania Census in Goshen, Chester, Pennsylvania next to Samuel Strayhorn
1805 Taxable List in Goshen, Chester, Pennsylvania
1820 US Census in New London, Chester, Pennsylvania possibly living with his son Samuel
- The 1790 US Census records Robert Strayhorn in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania with nine household members. It is not clear who in addition to Nathaniel, Samuel, and Margaret the additional household members could have been, although it was common to take in renters if one had the space.
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Abt 1733 - Aft 1820 (~ 88 years)
