aspen mitchell

 John A Hopper is my 3rd great-grandfather.  He lived in Rabun County Georgia for most of his life.  His father was Samuel Hopper and he was the seventh of ten children!  In the 1850 Census, he was living with his widowed father Samuel, and brothers Zachariah and Joseph, and his sister Sarah.  John’s older brother Thomas was living with his own family right next door.  

1850 Census, Rabun County, Militia District 536

On May 4th, 1857, John married Mary T Mathis in Rabun, Georgia.  I found them living with their first child John Marshall in Macon County, North Carolina in the 1860 Census.  Macon County, NC and Rabun County, GA were neighboring counties, just across the state line.  The family listed next to John A Hopper is John’s aunt Flora Ann and her husband Berrick Norton.  John probably enlisted as a Confederate soldier in the Civil War.

Georgia Marriage Records, May 4th, 1857

1860 Census, Macon County, NC

By 1870, John and his wife Mary had moved back to Rabun County and now had eight children!

Sarah Carolyn(1860), Flora Adaline (1862), Margaret Rosetta(1863), James A(1864), Thomas S(1866), Jasper V(1868), and Mack Monroe(1869).

1870 Census, Rabun County, GA

The 1880 Census shows John Hopper with his wife  and four more children!  Allie M(1872), Mary Virginia(1874), Charles Henry(1878), and George Washington(1880).  What a large family!  John and Mary would have one more child, a son named Edward Candler in 1883.

John A Hopper died July 17, 1891, at the age of 64.  His gravestone marks his birthday as December 17th, 1826.  He saw four of his children married and had 9 grandkids at the time of his death.

I would love to find his military records, if he did in fact enlist as a Civil War soldier.  I would also like to find out his middle name.  More to come!