The History of Troutman
The history of the Town of Troutman started sometime around the 1750s, when immigrants came to North Carolina's Piedmont region from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. They came here to take advantage of the free land that was being offered. In 1778, eleven year old John Jacob Trautman and his mother moved from Rockwell (in Rowan County) after his father's death. Trautman became a landowner purchasing 200 acres of land at the head of "Norrids Creek" (Norwoods Creek), just west of the present town of Troutman. The deed was issued in the name of Jacob Troutman on April 1, 1778. He preceded to purchase several hundred acres more over the following years. Eventually, Jacob Troutman is said to have bought and sold land quite often having held the title to around two thousand acres over time. His tombstone epitaph describes him as "… a carpenter, hat maker, cooper, stockman, school teacher and Realtor."
Troutman married in 1795, to Margaret Fesperman, and they had eight children together. Their second child, John Jacob, Jr. was also called Jacob. The younger Jacob married a Statesville woman named Anne Wolford, and they had seven children together. His wife Anne and the couple's surviving five children are responsible for the Troutman name taking its place in History. In 1853, 22 years after Jacob Jr. had died, Anne Troutman, along with her two sons, Sidney and Jacob, and her three daughters, built a home and wagon workshop close to a fork in the old Charlotte Road, where Perth Church Road branched off westward to the Catawba River (today, this area is downtown Troutman). These were the main wagon roads for the area at the time and saw regular traffic throughout the year. Sidney Troutman was a skilled wagonsmith and iron worker. So, the Troutman brothers began repairing and building wagons at their new homestead. They shipped their iron in from Richmond, Virginia, and procured their oak, pecan and hickory wood locally. A steady flow of freight wagons going past their new homestead allowed the craftsmanship of the Troutman men to be well-received. Over the following years, as the family's reputation and holdings flourished, people began referring to the crossroads simply as Troutman's, and the name stuck.
In 1855, the Troutman family's wagon works once again proved very beneficial for the increased wagon traffic that the newly started railroad construction brought. Railroad construction required the materials and workers be brought in, and, as the tracks progressed, a big camp for railroad workers was built near Troutman. Three years later on October 1, 1858, Statesville held a day long celebration when the railroad was officially opened. Statesville now had both east-west and north-south rail connections that put the city on the map. It was also a turning point for the budding village of Troutman, which now had about 60 permanent residents. Although not formally incorporated as a town, it was now a regular passenger and freight stop on the AT&O line. By 1862, nine Confederate dollars bought passengers a seat on a train pulled by a wood-fired steam locomotive all the way from Columbia, South Carolina to Statesville. Trains departed Columbia every morning at 7:30 AM, reached Troutman at 6:55 PM, and Statesville at 7:30 PM. Unfortunately, the Troutman railroad stop was short lived, as military necessity required that the rails from Charlotte to Statesville be ripped up and shipped to Virginia to replace track in and around the Shenandoah Valley that had been ruined by Union raiders during the Civil War. The rails were not rebuilt until 1870, and Troutman Depot was once again listed on the railroad schedule. That little depot building can be found today, relocated to a site adjacent to the Troutman family cemetery just a mile west of Town.
In the decades after the Civil War, the Troutman vicinity was home to saw mills and furniture makers. As the prime timber was cut and worked, the furniture industry gradually moved westward to Hickory and High Point. Cotton farming and textile mills became a mainstay of the local economy after that. In 1905, Troutman residents petitioned the State Legislature to grant them an official Town Charter.