John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 629

In note 612, the story of Abraham Thomas, taken from his own words, was told.  I decided he was born about 1756 and that he drove the sheep for his father up to Ten Mile Creek when he about 13 years of age.  (He was assisted by an older brother.)  Thus, his arrival might have been about 1769.  The story reads that his father (who would be Michael) had purchased land there and presumably moved there, perhaps in 1770.  Abraham said that the year he drove the sheep he already had relatives in the area.

The relatives in the area were probably the Hupps who had moved from Culpeper County.  In particular, Margaret Thomas had married Everhart Hupp.  Margaret was the older sister of Abraham.  One author, says that the Hupps, Bumgarners, and Teagardens moved from Virginia to Ten Mile Creek about 1766.  These families are among the earliest to file for land in this area.  The Rows were another early family from Culpeper.

When Philip Hupp died in Culpeper County in 1761, he named his wife Elizabeth and Henry Ayler as executors.  Henry Aylor had married Margaret Thomas, the sister of Michael Thomas.  Thus there may have been a closer connection between the Thomas family and the Hupp family than the Margaret Thomas (niece of the preceding Margaret) to Everhard Hupp marriage indicated.  The Hupps remained in Pennsylvania and Virginia and did not go on to Kentucky at this time.

Everhard and Margaret Hupp had eleven children.  Margaret was said to have the major hostess of the region who served meals to all manners of people.  George Washington is said to have visited on a trip to the region.  The claim is made that Margaret was the first white woman west of the Monongahela River.  Whether these stories have any basis in fact is difficult to say but it is clear, as following notes will tell, that the Thomas family was very early on the western frontier including the region which became Kentucky.  Other Culpeper families were also in the vanguard to the west.