THE TRUEMANS.
WILLIAM TRUEMAN was born in Yorkshire, England, in the year 1720, and emigrated to America with his family in the year 1775.They were probably passengers in the ship JENNIE, Captain Foster, which came to Halifax that spring with a number of emigrants from Yorkshire.The family consisted of William Trueman, his wife Ann, and their son William, an only child, a young man in his twenty-fourth year.
Billsdale* was the name of the township they left in the Old Country.
They were Methodists in religion, but had been members of the Episcopal Church and brought with them the prayer-books and commentaries of that communion.
[FOOTNOTE: *Billsdale, Westside Township, is a long moorland township of widely scattered houses on the west side of the Rye, extending from six to eight miles N.N.W.from Helmsley, and is mainly the property of the Earl Haversham.Its area is 4,014 acres; its land rises on lofty fells at Rydale Head.Hawnby parish includes the five townships of Hawnby, Arden, Billsdale, Westside, Dale Town, and Snillsby, the area of the parish being 24,312 acres.END OF FOOTNOTE]
In addition to his business as a farmer, William Trueman, senior, had taken the legal steps necessary in England to enable him to work as a joiner if he were so inclined.The son William had been engaged in the dry goods business a year or two before coming to Nova Scotia.
After landing at Halifax they came by schooner to Fort Cumberland, and very soon after settled about four miles from the fort at Point de Bute, then called Prospect.
There does not seem to have been many of the name left in Yorkshire at this time, and those who were in Billsdale and vicinity shortly moved to other parts of the country.A nephew of the first William, named Harmon, moved to another township, married, and had a family of ten children.Mary, Harmon's youngest daughter, married a man named Brown, and they called one of their sons Trueman Brown.Charles, a son of Trueman, spent a year at Prospect in the eighties, and Harmon, a brother of Charles, visited the home in 1882-83.I have not been able to trace the family in Yorkshire in any but this one branch.There is a photograph at Prospect of John Trueman, a son of the Harmon here mentioned, which shows a strong likeness to some of the family in this country.
A family of Truemans living in Ontario came to Canada about the year 1850, but we have not been able to trace any relationship.
The first purchase of land by the Truemans in Nova Scotia was from Joshua Mauger.This property was conveyed to William Trueman, sen.The deed reads: "I, Joshua Mauger, Esq., of London, in Great Britain, Esq.
member of Parliament, of the town of Poole, in the county of Dorsetshire, for and in consideration of the sum of ninety pounds lawful money of the Province of Nova Scotia," etc., etc.This ninety pounds was paid for eighty acres of upland and fifty-four acres of marsh adjoining a wood lot on Bay Verte Road, and a right in the great division of woodland, so-called.The deed was signed at Halifax by the Hon.John Butler, as attorney for Joshua Mauger, on the 8th September, 1777, and the money paid the same day.Thomas Scurr and J.B.Dight were the witnesses, it was proved at Fort Cumberland on the 31st of Sept., 1777, by Thomas Scurr, and registered in New Brunswick by James Odell, May 3rd, 1785.
The next purchase of real estate was made from Thomas Scurr, the place now called Prospect Farm.Six hundred and fifty pounds lawful money of the Province of New Brunswick was the amount paid.Between the first and second purchase the Province had been divided, and that part of the township of Cumberland in which the Truemans settled had gone to New Brunswick.The number of acres in this last purchase was estimated at eight hundred, including nearly five hundred acres of wilderness land.
The deed was witnessed by Thomas Chandler and Amos Botsford.Mrs.Scurr did not sign the deed, and the following is the copy of a document found very carefully laid away among the old papers at Prospect:
"VIRGINIA, PRINCESS ANN COUNTY, "June 25th, 1789.
"On this day personally appeared before me, Dennis Dooley, Justice of the Peace of the said county of the commonwealth of Virginia, Elizabeth Scurr, and voluntarily relinquished her right of a dower in a certain tract or piece of land in the town of Westmoreland and Province of New Brunswick, viz.: Three eighty-acre lots, Nos.sixteen, eighteen and twenty, with the marsh and wilderness thereto belonging.All in division letter B, and described fully in a deed from Thomas Scurr to William Trueman and on record in Westmoreland, No.142.
"Given under my hand and seal this day as above.
"DENNIS DOOLEY.
"The within Elizabeth Scurr doth hereby voluntarily subscribe her name to the within contents.
"ELIZABETH SCURR."
Dennis Dooley, Justice of the Peace of the commonwealth of Virginia in the year 1789, was a good penman.
James Law owned Prospect Farm before Thomas Scurr.The deed conveying the property from Law to Scurr is still among the documents at Prospect.As Law was early in the country after the expulsion, it is probable he was the first to get possession after the removal of the Acadians.
Thomas Scurr, sen., left the country soon after selling Prospect Farm.
The old chronicles say he was a man very much esteemed for his piety.
He represented Cumberland township, for one session at least, in the Legislature at Halifax.In 1785, "in opposition to the advice of a friend against going from a place where was wanted to a place where he was not wanted," he removed to the South, and purchased an estate near Norfolk, Virginia.He repented too late, for nearly all the members of his large family fell victims to diseases peculiar to southern climates.
