New York
This Valentine Van Hooser (1726-1781) was born 16 Jan 1726 in Claverack, Albany, New York. If we are looking for namesakes, then Valentine takes his name from his mother's father, Johann Valentin (Laux) Lauck. "Felty" which is often attached to Valentine's name is but a nickname like Tom, Dick, or Harry.
Valentine a fourth generation Van Huss, and direct descendant of Jan Franz Van Husum. As is often the case with children not the first born, they move on to other lands. So it was that Jan Franz Van Husum who settled in upstate New York near present day Albany would watch as later born children moved on. In the case of the Van Husums, Van Hoesens, Van Hoosers, and Van Huss, it was west to Pennsylvania, south to North Carolina, up to Virginia, then across the Smokey Mountains to Tennessee and beyond.
Pennsylvania
Our fourth generation Valentine finds himself in Tulpehocken (Land of the Turtles), Lancaster County (now Berks), Pennsylvania, home to many German families like the Laux and the Zerbe that mixed with Valentine on the maternal side of the family, and interestingly, the ancestral home of Abraham Lincoln and the birthplace of Daniel Boone. Valentine came there in 1728 at the age of 2 with his parents and siblings. They settled among Germans who had first come in 1723 and squatted on land that by rights belonged to the Indians. Thus, when the Van Hooser family arrived, the dispute with the local Delawares had yet to be settled. Only in 1732, when Thomas Penn purchase of the land from the Indians, were things made right.
Then, there was the matter of his marriage to Maria Barbara (Zerwe) Zerbe on 22 December 1746 in Tulpehocken. The couple had begun a family by the 5th of March 1750, when Valentine took out a land patent for 50 acre.
North Carolina
Perhaps the reason was the impending Indian troubles, or the growing number of German immigrants moving in, or just the need for change and new land, but, for whatever reason, the couple moves to Rowan County, North Carolina.They would travel by wagon drawn by horse. Their route was The Great Valley Road, aka the "Great Wagon Road," "Great Warriors' Path," "Valley Pike," "Carolina Road," or "Trading Path" which forked at Big Lick Virginia (Roanoke) and took our travelers south to Salisbury North Carolina where they found land.
North Carolina had its own Indian troubles and then there was the matter of the Regulators, who were incensed at paying taxes to absent British "landowners". The farmers "rebellion" against British authority culminated with the Battle of Alamance in 1771, which the Regulators lost. Many of the farmers who had taken up arms then fled to the hills of Tennessee or Virginia.
Virginia
This would explain the strange case of McKenney vs. Preston--O. S. 308; N. S. 110, Chancery Court, Chalkley's Chronicles, Vol 2, Court records of Augusta Virginia, page 228.
Thomas Beelor being deposed remembers: "...[The] family Hooser or Van Hooser, as they were called, ... settled on North Fork of Clinch near Flat Lick in 1775. The oldest Van Hooser (deponent understood from his father) made the upper improvement, and the old man's son John was the next oldest man and made an improvement near the old man."
Various sources state that Valentine, 51 years old, died at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. Valentine's name is not included among those listed by the Daughters of the American Revolution, but there is a note that the list is not complete.
Sources
* History of Tulpehocken, Berks County by Judy Thayer
Van Hooose, Van Hooser, Van Huss (Van Hoesen, Van Husum and other variations) Family in America by Joyce Lindstrom
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