Woolper, Wollpper, Woellper

Woolper Creek, which starts at two or three places behind Burlington, has been noted as being one of the finest fishing creeks, especially in the lower reaches.

 Seth C. Foster, who was born in Boone County in 1823, knew that creek, but he left the county as a young man and became one of the founders of Stearns & Foster Co., mattress manufacturers of Cincinnati.

 So when Mr. Foster purchased an estate in Clifton in 1908, he named a street after the creek where he spent much of his boyhood.  It is presently known as Woolper Avenue. [See the map here]. 

 But Woolper Creek, now that the Markland Dam has backed up the water for a considerable distance, is becoming more famous now as a place to fish that it was more than a century ago.

 The creek itself was named for John David Wollpper of Philadelphia, and the spelling changed over the years.

 Wollpper received a grant of 2000 acres of land because of service in the French and Indian War.  The land grant is signed by Edmund Randolph, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia.  It is dated October 6, 1788.

 The tract was then in Fincastle County, Virginia.  However, on April 12, 1791, John David Woellper (the spelling was different even then) sold the land he had received for military service to John Taylor, of Fayette County, Kentucky.  What is now Boone County was then a part of Woodford County.

 The purchase price was seven hundred and fifty pounds, gold and silver money to him in hand paid by the said John Taylor at the time of the execution of the transaction.

 William Fitzgerald, Florence, president of the Kentucky Historical Society, said that John Taylor was a Baptist minister who assisted in the formation of the Bullittsburg Baptist Church, said to be the oldest Baptist Church west of the Alleghenies.

 John Taylor was the author of the now rare book, “Ten Churches,” which is the history of the early churches in Kentucky.

from Cincinnati Enquirer, by correspondent Bob Ellis, September 4, 1965.