Notes |
- Early in the 18th century Charles Word I., the progenitor of an extensive family, came from Llandaff, Glamorganshire, Wales, and settled in Virginia. He is recorded as "a recognized patriot." His five sons, Charles II., Thomas, John, Peter and Cuthbert, were all soldiers in the Revolutionary War, noted among their comrades for bravery. (Mrs. King is descended from both Charles and Thomas, through intermarriage of their families.)
Charles Word II. was born 1738 in Virginia. While a mere youth of seventeen he volunteered, and went out with the "Virginia Blues," under command of George Washington (then a Colonel), to guard the frontier against the French. Taking part soon after in the battle near Fort Duquesue, where Gen. Braddock was defeated, he was one of that gallant band of Colonials who, under Washington, covered the retreat of Braddock and his Regulars, thus saving them from complete destruction. Of the "Virginia Blues" only thirty escaped alive. Later Charles Word II. married Elizabeth Adams, a relative of John and Samuel Adams, and about the time the Revolutionary War began, moved to North Carolina. When his youngest child, Elizabeth Adams Word, was one year old, he was killed in the battle of King's Mountain, October, 1780. This daughter married MATTHEW BROOKS HOOPER, a young kinsman of William Hooper, Representative of North Carolina in the Colonial Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Both came from the New England Hoopers and by family tradition were descendants of Bishop John Hooper, of England- who, rather than recant, was burned at the stake, in 1555, by Queen Mary. John Word Hooper, the second son of Matthew Brooks Hooper and his wife, Elizabeth Adams Word, enjoyed exceptional educational advantages, and grew up to a manhood of usefulness and honor in his adopted State, Georgia. While still quite young, he became noted as a lawyer, and was made a member of the State Judiciary, serving as the first Judge of Cherokee County, which then included nearly the whole of Northwest Georgia, probably the largest Judicial Circuit in the State (see Alexander record for further information). The wife of Judge Hooper was his second cousin, Sarah Allen Word, the grand-daughter of Thomas Word, of the Revolutionary Army. Her mother, Sarah Allen, was a relative of Ethan Allen, and also of President Madison's wife, by whom she was much beloved. The youngest daughter of Judge Hooper and his wife, Sarah Allen Word, was Sarah Joyce Hooper, later the wife of Col. Thomas Williamson Alexander (see Alexander record) and mother of Mrs. Sarah Joyce King. Educated, intelligent and accustomed from childhood to contact with the brighest minds, Mrs. Alexander was a potent factor for good in her community and entire section, honored and loved by high and low. During the war between the States she gave time, substance and tender care to the sick and suffering. Soon after the war she was made President of the Ladies' Memorial Association of Rome, serving in this position until her death, a quarter of a century later, during which time she was chiefly instrumental in erecting the Confederate monument and marble headstones above the several hundred Confederate dead there buried. Of her four living children (see Alexander record), the youngest, Sarah Joyce Alexander, like to her mother in mind and heart, as well as name, is the wife of Charles William King (see King record) and the mother of two children, Sarah Joyce and Barrington King (see Alexander record).
The eldest daughter of Col. Thomas Williamson Alexander and Sarah Joyce Hooper, Hallie Miller, who married James A. Rounsaville, has been recently honored by being elected President of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, thus adding to the lustre of all these old families.
Note.- Authority for above records is found in family Bibles, manuscripts, tombstones, and in various histories?Ramsey's "South Carolina," Howe's "Presbyterian Church in South Carolina," Saye's "MS. Records," Massachusetts, Virginia, Carolina and Georgia State Records, and Historical Society Records, White's "Statistics of Georgia," Foote's "Sketches," and various other volumes.
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