SOLUTION TO THE JOHN GOUGE - LIZZIE HOPPES PROBLEM?
Denise and Harry have been very concerned about the dozens of Internet references stating that John Gouge born about 1765 was married to Elizabeth (Lizzie) Hoppes, also born about 1765. Many references indicate that Lizzie was the daughter of old Adam Hoppes (who migrated from Pennsylvania to North Carolina before 1790). At the Hoppesgenerations web site, Denise discussed this attribution in "Brick Walls" and Harry in "Harry's Ten Most Wanted List". The basic problem is that Adam Hoppes was born in 1760 and could not have had a daughter born about 1765. Moreover, the families of our original Hoppes immigrants prior to 1780 are well documented, and there was no Elizabeth Hoppes available to have married John Gouge. On the other hand, Gouge family data that helps support the John Gouge - Lizzie Hoppes union include Jimmy Lipps' WPA interview statement that he remembers one of John Gouge's daughters and her mother Elizabeth, a daughter of old Adam Hoppis, as well as the 1850 Census of Yancey County, NC, which includes Elizabeth Gouge, age 85, living in the household of another one of her daughters.
Our approach to solving this dilemma was to create the following "Fact Sheet" that we believe helps resolve the "John Gouge - Lizzie Hoppes Problem".
1. Adam Hoppes was born in Berks
County, PA on October 1, 1760 and baptized on October
19, 1760
according to the records of Oley Hill Church. He was listed as an
unmarried land-
holder in Penn
Township, Northampton County, PA in 1784 and 1785. Adam Hoppes was
listed on a
militia muster roll of Northampton County, PA in 1785.
2. Adam Hoppes and his younger brother
Jacob journeyed to Lincoln County, North
Carolina, where Adam
found State property along Dellinger's Creek that he liked and had
100 acres
surveyed. He filed warrants for the land in November 1788 and again in
February and May
1789, completed the land surveys in 1789 and 1790, and received
land grants in
1791. In June 1794, Adam Hoppes purchased 600 acres in Lincoln
County on Rudisill's
Creek near his Dellinger Creek property from Elizabeth Rhyne,
recent widow of
Jacob Rhyne, for 20 pounds. Five years later he got his 20 pounds
back when he
sold half of this acreage to Thomas Rhyne, one of Jacob and Elizabeth's
sons.
3. Slightly before 1790, Adam Hoppes
apparently married a woman whose name is lost to us.
When the Census
of 1800 was taken, he was residing in Lincoln County, NC with a wife
whose age was
listed in the 26-45 category (i.e., born 1755 - 1776), three boys under 10
years of age,
one girl 10 - 16 years old (i.e., born 1784 - 1790), and one girl under 10.
In 1810, Adam Hoppes
had a wife age 45 or older, i.e., born 1765 or before. Adams'
wife apparently died,
and he remarried and then moved to Burke County, North
Carolina in 1816 or
1817. In the 1820 Census, he is listed there with a large family and
a wife age 26 - 45
years old (i.e., born 1775 - 1794). Adam Hoppes died about 1846
with none his ten
heirs being Elizabeth (Hoppes) Gouge.
4. However, there is a strong belief
that Adam Hoppes had a daughter Lizzie, who was
married to John
Gouge. The best known evidence for this marriage is the following
statement in a
Works Progress Administration (WPA) interview in the late 1930s by
by James
"Uncle Jimmy" Lipps conducted by Emory L. Hamilton: ". . .Yes, I
remember
James Buchanan,
Esquire. They called him Esquire because of his large land holdings
in Wise
County. He came from North Carolina with his two brothers, George and
John.
James' wife was Betsy
Gouge, but I believe her real name was Elizabeth. I remember her
mother, too.
Her name was Elizabeth also and she was a daughter of old Adam Hippis.
I remember she spoke broken
English and Betsy Buchanan said she was Dutch . . ."
5. Buchanan family data tend to confirm
the John Gouge - Lizzy Hoppes marriage as the
following
Internet data (emphasis ours) indicate: "Posted by: Paul Dennion Buchanan
Date: 9Feb2999
In Reply to: Re: BUCHANAN, John VA, SC by Randy Wright: I
have quite a
bite of information for James' family. He is a brother to my great great
grandfather,
George BUCHANAN. James S. Buchanan, son of Arthur BUCHANAN
Temperance
VANCE, was born in Burke County, NC, 07March1805, and died
03January 1892
in Dickenson County, VA. He is buried in the Esau Buchanan
Cemetery at Darwin,
VA near my home. James married Elizabeth Betty Gouge about
1823 in Burke County,
NC. Elizabeth, daughter of John GOUGE, Sr and Elizabeth
"Lizzie"
HOPPES, was born 1802 near Bakersville, Burke County, NC, and died of
old age
09June1895 in Wise County, VA . . ." (Note: Other data sources report
Elizabeth
Gouge's date of death as June 9, 1885.)
6. Although it is possible that Adam
Hoppes married about 1786 and had an oldest
daughter named
Elizabeth who was born about 1787 - 1788, she would have been
in her
early teens if her daughter (also named Elizabeth) had been born in 1802.
There is another real problem, moreover, with a birth date of 1787 - 1788 for
the
Elizabeth who married John Gouge, because Gouge family researchers believe that
John Gouge and Lizzie Hoppes had a number of other children before Elizabeth
born in 1802, as the following Internet data indicate:
JOHN GOUGE, SR. was born 1765 in Virginia. He married Elizabeth HOPPES. Children of JOHN GOUGE and ELIZABETH HOPPES are:
2.
i. WILLIAM GOUGE, b. May 18, 1789; d. March 09, 1880; m. MARTHA THOMAS
3.
ii. JOHN GOUGE, JR., B. 1791, Burke Co., NC; d. Aft. 1870. m.
SUSANNAH SPARKS
4. iii. JOEL GOUGE, SR., B. 1797, Buncombe
Co., NC; d. April 21, 1856, Yancy Co. NC;
m. MINERVA PHILLIPS
5. iv. ELIZABETH GOUGE, b. 1802; d. June 09,
1885. m. JAMES BUCHANAN
6. v. ANNA GOUGE, b. 1806; d.
January 13, 1889. m. JOSEPH BUCHANAN
7. vi. THOMAS GOUGE, b.
1808; d. Aft. 1860; m. SARAH BLEVINS
8. vii. JAMES GOUGE, b. 1810; d.
1849; m. JUDITH ROBERTS
7. The data in
item #5 above have James S. Buchanan born in Burke County in 1805 and
Elizabeth Gouge born in 1802 near Bakersville, Burke County. If Elizabeth
were Adam
Hoppes' daughter,
something seems wrong here because the Hoppes family was living
in Lincoln County at the time.
8. The
Federal Censuses of 1840 and 1850 for Yancey County, NC are helpful in resolving
the Gouge - Hoppes probelm. They do not contain any families with the
surname Lipps.
The Federal
Census of 1850 for Yancey County, NC, however, indicates that Elizabeth
Gouge, age 85 (i.e., born 1765) was living n the household of Joseph Buchanan
and his
wife Anna (nee
Gouge). Her birthplace was listed as VA. The age 85 for Elizabeth is
far too great for her to have been Adam Hoppes' daughter, and the birthplace of
VA
also does not fit with
Elizabeth being a Hoppes related to old Adam Hoppes. Therefore,
John Gouge, Sr. could not have been married to Elizabeth/Lizzie Hoppes, as is so
reported on the Internet.
9. But what
about the testimony of James "Uncle Jimmy" Lipps in his WPA interview
in the
late 1930s that Betsy
Buchanan's mother was Lizzie Hoppes, a daughter of old Adam
Hoppis, and that he remembered she spoke broken English and that Betsy Buchanan
said she was Dutch? The testimony certainly implies that James Lipps had
met Lizzie
(Hoppes) Gouge in
person. To help resolve this issue, it is important to know the
identity of "Uncle Jimmy" Lipps. The 1870 Census of Wise County,
Lipps Township,
VA indicates
that James and Betsy Buchanan were living next door to a well-known
Baptist minister Morgan T. Lipps. One of Rev. Lipps' sons was James
Davenport
Lipps born in VA
about 1842. Another son, Jacob W. Lipps born about 1837 in
Russell County, VA, had a son James Lipps born in 1876. These two
individuals
appear to be the
only likely candidates for Jimmy Lipps who gave the WPA
interview. But James Davenport Lipps would have been almost a hundred
years
old at the time of the
interview and, although the younger Jimmy Lipps would only
have been in his 60's and could have remembered Betsy Gouge who died in 1885/95,
he would not have remembered Betsy's mother (who would have had to have been
born prior to 1790 to have a daughter born 1802). Moreover, the Wise
County
Censuses of 1860,
1870 and 1880 fail to list any older persons living in the household
of James and Betsy Buchanan. Therefore, it seems highly doubtful that
either the
James Lipps born
in 1842 or the James Lipps born in 1876 could have known Betsy
(Gouge) Buchanan's mother in person. We conclude that Jimmy Lipps was
mistaken
when he identified
Lizzie Gouge as being a daughter of Adam Hoppes.
January 23, 2001
Denise O. Kern
Harry Hoppes