His grandfather French Strother had served in the Continental Congress then represented Culpeper County for decades in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly.

Strother began his legal practice in Washington, Virginia in Rappahannock County on the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

[7] Strother was also a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850 (representing Fauquier and Rappahannock counties alongside fellow lawyer Robert E. Scott and Samuel Chilton).

[8] Voters of Virginia's 9th congressional district nonetheless elected Strother as a Whig to the United States House of Representatives in 1850.

Union forces began controlling the Rappahannock/Rapidan area after the Battle of Culpeper Court House in September 1863, and what had been Strother's district would become devastated before Major General Robert E. Lee took his last survey from atop Clark Mountain on May 4, 1864.