Stringfellow family

Thornton Stringfellow was born on March 6, 1788, the son of Robert "Tory Bob" Stringfellow (1736-1815) and Catharine Stigler (d. 1828). The Stringfellows lived in Culpeper County, Virginia, where Thornton became the first minister of the Stevensburg Baptist Church in 1833. He helped organize the Southern Baptist Conference (later the Southern Baptist Convention) in 1845. In 1848, he retired to his estate, "Bel Air," where he was a farmer. During the Civil War, he provided grain, wagons, and services to Confederate forces. In 1812, Stringfellow married Amelia Walker (1796-1829), the first of his four wives and the mother of his two surviving children, Penelope (1813-1852) and Elizabeth (b. 1817). His other wives were Ann Nancy Hill (1786-1842) and widows Elizabeth F. Gibson (née Gray) (1795-1867), and Emily Ann Bowen (née Spindle) (d. 1874). Thornton Stringfellow died on March 6, 1869.

James Lawrence Stringfellow (1816-1899), Thornton Stringfellow's nephew, was the son of James L. Stringfellow, Sr. (1775-1847), and Hannah Robinson Moxley (1781-1859). A lawyer, James L. Stringfellow managed Thornton Stringfellow's estates, and he later inherited Bel Air. He married Penelope Stringfellow, his first cousin, in 1843, and they lived at Bel Air and, later, Thornton Stringfellow's "Summerduck" estate. Penelope Stringfellow died in 1852, and her widower married Harriet Ficklin (b. ca. 1822) in March 1854. They had three sons: Thornton (1860-1923), George F. (b. 1861), and James (1863-1866). Thornton Stringfellow married Cora Bell Ewing (1859-1931), and they had seven children. He later inherited the family estates.

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