The following story was Compiled by Roger Bruce Dubbs of Universal City, Texas dated May 1995 from Boutwell Webb Tree accessed 6/21/10 on Ancestry.com

John Dups, on the death of his father, chose as guardian, Henry Waggoner, a blacksmith, it is believed he became a blacksmith as well as a farmer. The only tradition has come down about his generation is that the sons were bound out to learn a trade. This was the custom of the time and not confined to orphans.

In 1776 John Dups was a drummer in the Company of Captain Thomas Koppenheffer of the Lancaster County Militia and his name appears on various muster rolls of the Revolutionary period. A note is appended to one stating that John Dups and several others had deserted - the whole group of them "Living in Hanover Township near Adam Harper's." This must have a temporary AWOL for he is listed again in 1778 and 1781. (PA. archives, 5th series, Vol. 7, pp 153, 545, 1054, and 1055.)

Besides his birth record and his militia service, the only other record of John Dups in PA is that of a son, Henry, born to John and Christine Dups in 1777 and recorded in the Swatara Church Book. John Dups is believed to have left Lancaster County in 1781 since his son John born 1871, was born in Virginia. A Virginia census of 1784 shows him with a family of five living in Hampshire County, Virginia (now West Virginia). By 1800 the family was in Ross County, Ohio where the eldest son married in 1799.

Ross County, Ohio was a raw frontier in 1800 and the records kept were few and scanty. The first tax record found lists John Dups paying tax on 100 acres of land in Twin Township on Waugh's Run in 1808. He paid his tax (something like 75 cents per year) up until 1818 the year he died. The probate record is very brief and appeears under the name of John Toops, although the tombstone (which still exists and is legible in the Moore Cemetery on the Cincinnati Pike, Twin township, Ross County, Ohio) lists it correctly as Dups. Samuel Toops was listed as administrator and Daniel Toops as his bondsman. But there is no record of the sisposal of the estate or any deed transferring land.