Chronology

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1. Colonial and Regulator years · 1680–1774

2. 1740
   Migration or settlement · the Hawfields Gilbert Strayhorn comes to the Hawfields from Pennsylvania

   Gilbert Strayhorn, a Pennsylvania-born tailor of Scottish parentage, came to the Hawfields at about 25, went back north to marry Margaret Roan, and returned to a place about a mile south of the later Mebaneville. After two years there he moved into the New Hope bounds, where he became one of the church's founders.

3. about 1750
   Migration or settlement · New Hope Hawfields families move to New Hope Creek over doubts about their Granville titles

   When word spread through the Hawfields that the land titles got through Earl Granville's agents were not genuine, William Craige, Gilbert Strayhorn and other families left and took up land on the waters of New Hope. Family tradition held that the settlers named the stream for the 'new hopes' they found there.

4. about 1754 to 1755
   Naming or commemoration · New Hope Gilbert Strean takes the surname Strayhorn

   About the time he got the deeds for his New Hope lands, Gilbert Strean, or Streaughan, changed his name to Strayhorn, saying he had put a 'horn' to it to make it sound. His nephews Alexander, John and James, who came south later to find him, kept the name Strain.

5. 1755
   Property or economic transaction · Prestwood Creek Gilbert Strayhorn's grant on Prestwood Creek is entered

   Strayhorn's Prestwood Creek tract was one of many grants entered along the county's streams in its first years.

6. about 1771
   New Hope James Hunter's family takes refuge at Gilbert Strayhorn's house

   After James Hunter was outlawed and his house burned, the Hunter family fled to Gilbert Strayhorn's house in the New Hope settlement. There Strayhorn's nephew Alexander Strain met and married Hunter's daughter.

7. Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799

8. February 25, 1792
   Property or economic transaction · New Hope Gilbert Strayhorn deeds two hundred acres to New Hope church

   Soon after Lake left, the aged Gilbert Strayhorn gave two hundred acres 'to the subscribers of the church and their successors.' Every New Hope church stood on this land, and seventy acres of it were still the congregation's in 1891.

9. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

10. February 6, 1803
    Life event · New Hope Gilbert Strayhorn, a founder and first elder of New Hope church, dies

    Strayhorn died at 88 and was buried in the old New Hope graveyard, next to the church he had helped found on his own land.

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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.