Jacob Stroyer (1849 - February 7, 1908) was an American former slave who became a preacher in Massachusetts.

But in the fourth edition (1898), he corrected his date of birth to 1849, and he also specified that he was thirteen years old in the summer of 1863 when he was assigned to a Confederate work detail on Sullivan's Island and fourteen years old when he was wounded at Ft. Sumter in the summer of 1864.

Stroyer's father, William, was born in Sierra Leone and was captured and brought to America as a youth.

The younger Stroyer knew little about his father's family background, other than the names of his paternal grandparents.

Stroyer's mother, Chloe, was born in South Carolina where her family had been enslaved for several generations.