Born in King George County, Virginia, the eldest son of James Lawrence Strother and his wife Margaret, French Strother moved to Falmouth, Virginia with them as a boy when his father received a job inspecting tobacco for export from the Rappahannock River area. When his father died in 1761, French inherited his estate.
Strother studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practiced law principally in Culpeper County.
Strother lived on a large estate on the Culpeper/Stevensburg Road and served on the vestry of Saint Mark"s Parish. He also served as Presiding Justice of the Culpeper County Court for most of his adult life. French Strother represented Culpeper County in the Virginia General Assembly for more than 25 years, including in the Virginia Convention of 1776, 15 years in the Virginia House of Delegates and another 8 years in the Virginia Senate.
In 1788 Culpeper county voters elected French Strother to represent them in the Virginia Ratification Convention, where he allied with Patrick Henry and George Mason and voted against the proposed United States Constitution—although the convention as a whole ratified lieutenant
