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regarding William Thomas Hooper (signatory of the American Declaration of Indepence) and Absalom Hooper
Bad information on William Thomas Hooper, Signer of the "Declaration of Independence" , information all over the place
http://www.hoopercompass.com/pubs/HC2_2011.pdf
The family Bible record of the Signer's family, as available at the NC State Archives, lists only three children of William Hooper the Signer and his wife Anne Clark.
---"I have found references to a William Thomas Hooper that shows a son Absalom, but it is not the Signer."
Thank you so much for pointing out this obvious error.
"William Thomas Hooper" as father of an 18th century Absalom Hooper is yet another mythical connection. Sources for "a William Thomas Hooper that shows a son Absalom," are recent inventions of the 20th century or later. Please allow me to explain.
In this case, I am talking about the Revolutionary War soldier for SC and GA named Absalom Hooper.
Why even suggest the name William Thomas Hooper as parent to Absalom? 'William' probably comes from the desire to link to the Signer William Hooper. 'Thomas' derives from strong suggestions by just one family branch. A lady who shared info in the 1990s placed Absalom Hooper's father as a Thomas Hooper, based upon her mother's argument that she "knew" the name [oral history that was written sometime mid-20th century].
More recent understanding of the adult Hooper men who lived on Pistol Creek in Georgia during the Revolution makes it extremely unlikely that the soldier's father had the name Thomas Hooper.
Five adult men left records in that general area of frontier Wilkes County, Georgia at the time of and shortly after the Revolution:
- Enoch Hooper, corporal, 5th SC regiment, killed in late summer of 1776
- Churchwell Hooper, pvt, 5th SC regiment, landowner Pistol Creek until 1795/6 when he moved to TN
- Thomas Hooper, pvt, 5th SC regiment, landowner Pistol Creek adjacent Churchwell until 1795/6 when he moved to TN, identified as brother to Churchwell in Church Hooper's will.
- Jesse Hooper, pvt, GA militia, once lived near Pistol Creek but moved further up the Broad River by 1785, moved to TN near Church and Thomas in 1790s.
- William Hooper, enlisted same day as Church and Thomas Hooper in 5th SC regiment, had land warrant that was acquired by John Gambell before March 1784, land was not on Pistol Creek.
Only Church, Thomas, and Jesse Hooper can be shown to have been alive and in the Pistol Creek area when Absalom fled to his unnamed uncle in fall, 1780. Later, Absalom's brother Clemmons Hooper talked about an unnamed uncle who hosted the marriage ceremony for Absalom [mid-1780s]. By that time, Jesse Hooper had moved upriver, leaving only the brothers Thomas and Church Hooper still living along Pistol Creek. These facts suggest that the two brothers Thomas and Church Hooper were the benevolent uncles who hosted Absalom and Clemmons Hooper. And if the two younger men had an uncle named Thomas, it seems quite unlikely that their father also was named Thomas Hooper. After all, why would two adult brothers both be named Thomas Hooper?
[Please note that I am assuming the benevolent uncle to Absalom and Clemmons, someone who lived on Pistol Creek from at least 1780 to the middle 1780s, was a paternal uncle who would have carried the Hooper surname.]
What was the name of Absalom's father? I still don't know. We know more of which Hoopers were NOT the father of Absalom than we do about which one was the father. After decades of study, I am unaware of any research or written documentation which gives a strong hint of the father's name.
---"None of the Signer’s children was names Absalom or Daniel Boone."
The first WRITTEN record I can find about "Daniel Boone Hooper" or "Boonie Hooper" came in the 20th century and is reported in Mary Hooper Crocker's excellent 1993 tome, "'A Glimpse into the Past' of Hooper and Related FAmilies (1763-1993) [self-published, Kingsville, TX].
On pages 580-581, Mrs. Crocker is directly quoting from a letter written by Sadie Melton of Tuckasegee, North Carolina to Ralph Rideout, dated 27 April 1965:
"All members of the family now living have always been told that Clemmons S. Hooper's father was named Boonie, but nowhere in all the records ... there has not been any man by the name of Boone or Daniel Boone recorded. But all along in these records, we find the name of Clemmons S and Clemmons S., Jr. closely connected."
Then Mrs. Crocker goes on to show that Mrs. Melton had discussed Boone or Boonie as a nickname and had come to the conclusion that Clemmons Hooper [Sr., father to Clemmons S Hooper and brother of Absalom Hooper] loved hunting and fishing and the mountains so much that he gained the nickname Daniel Boone.
This is evidence that "Daniel Boone Hooper" or "Boonie Hooper" derives from ORAL history as a reference to the senior Clemmons Hooper who was born about 1770. The oral history finally got written into a letter over a century after the death of the nicknamed fellow.
As was shown by my prior messages today, this man was a younger brother to Absalom Hooper; their father was dead by February 1778. They cannot be descendants of the famous William Hooper of MA and NC who signed the Declaration and who was alive until 1790. There were men named William within the kinsmen of Clemmons [b. 1770] and Absalom [b. ca 1765], but their lineage is not related through paternity with the Signer's lineage.