History written by Helen Everett (Newcomb)

Stephen Truesdell is the first one of his family we have heard about (Editor's note: Helen subsequently traced the family further back). On the Hudson River in lovely Green County, New York he was a linen weaver of note. From stories and letters he has all the earmarks of a fair but shrewd Yankee who in addition to his trade bought, sold, and leased farm land. tie taught: his sons the art of weaving and instead of sending them to school, he may have kept them hard at work for the letters left to us do not show more than basic skills. But Stephen prospered and put his money into land. Caroline, who lived with Stephen and Catherine for a while, wrote "I live quite lady-like", and also said she was going to school.

I would judge that John also became a weaver because he was the only son that stayed in Coxsackie. He taught his eldest son, George, to be a weaver and later bought him a farm in Illinois (not as a gift, however). Stephen required that George pay interest annually which seems fair enough. Eventually he bought a farm for each one of his sons. In his will he divided up his property among his sons but stipulated that the notes previously owed must be paid, and all interest of assets were to be sent to Catherine, his wife for her upkeep. Daughters aren't mentioned unless Stomer (sp) is a daughter.

That he and Catherine were kind and loving is shown by the fact they welcomed their grandchildren and treated them as special guests. Up to the time Stephen died he was alert. He hadn't been paid interest by George on the Illinois farm; so he asked Caroline who was living there at the time to write her brother John to lease the farm and send a contract made up by a lawyer. Stephen apparently wanted no part of George, or at least he realized he could get no money from George. Stephen died soon after this letter was written. Catherine lived for fifteen more years at Coxsackie with Josephine and a son.

Caroline writes in 1857 that "Grandma is in the kitchen a cooking." Adds that she is sleeping in the parlor because Grandma was afraid she would freeze upstairs. Her Aunt Mary who apparently lived in the household had just: given her some wine "and it has made my pen poor". I hope we find out who Stephen's ancestors are and Catherine's too because they might have been early colonists.

It seems that George was quite a boy, or to put it kindly - a rugged individualist. he had the reputation of being the stubbornness man alive which he probably deserved as one gathers from the letters and documents which Adalaide saved for future generations. George grew up in Coxsackie in the early 1800's, learned the trade of a linen weaver and traveled dawn the Hudson River to Poughkeepsie to ply his trade. In the meantime his father had been buying and leasing farms, and for some reason that we don't know, George decided to become a farmer and leased the farm in McHcnry County, Illinois which his father owned. He moved west with his family in August of 1847.

Because George didn't pay his bills, and the children had little schooling, I assume that farming in Illinois was not successful. Caroline visited her grandparents at Coxsackie in 1857 and writes home that "there is no use for Pa to come after me because I won't come home". later she did so 'Pa' must have changed her mind.

George didn't pay his note to his father nor the interest due to his mother. Two sons died in infancy. There must have been a great many hardships for the whole family. George employed a lawyer to gain title to the farm and thus to break the will about: twenty years after his father died, but he didn't pay the lawyer. Later Adalaide, his daughter, wrote the lawyer who by that time - 27 years later - was out of patience and wanted to settle for $150.00.

In 1873 Josephine writes from Coxsackie to plead with George to write his Mother who is dying. He has made no move to contact her or the family. Josephine can't understand his silence because they have always loved him, and hope to see him in Heaven if they can't before. The reason may have been that George awed them money and he felt guilty. From the letter I can't tell whether Josephine is a sister or a sister-in-law.

To show how stubborn George was in his later years there is a family story about when the family house caught fire. George was in his 80's and not feeling too well so he was upstairs in bed. His daughter rushed up in Great excitement and told him to get up And get out of the house quick, lie refused.

"But the house is on fire", she screamed.

To that he replied as he settled down, "Let 'er burn"

But we shouldn't judge George too harshly. That he and his father did not get along has been mentioned; George did not like the terms of his father's will and refused to live up to the required payments, we find that Stephen's will was apparently settled near or after George's death. George may have been financially unable to pay his bills, or his brother John may have been indeed unjust. John ended up with the lion's share.

However there is no doubt that George was a bitter old man. One letter from his granddaughter Alice Russell Newcomb tells Adalaide to show her letter to her mother, but "e;tell Dad the news". So when he was an old man we find him mostly alone. His wife and all his children had died except Adalaide, and she had defied him by marrying "e;the hired man."e; Plus the fact that he had had serious differences with his brother John. As a result he willed his farm - the possession that he had battled for all his life - to his grand son-in-law, Daniel Ephphatha Newcomb. Daniel had no use for a farm in Illinois; so gave it to Adalaide. The bitter, stubborn old man couldn't even have his way after death.

Very little is known of Mary, George's eldest daughter and our ancestor except that she married Charles H. Russell when she was eighteen years old, had a child every two years until she died of tuberculosis when she was twenty-six years old. From the way Alice, the eldest child, writes in later years it appears that the George Truesdell family reared the four children after Mary died because Alice never has anything to say about her father, but it may also be that we don't have her father's letters. But all the relatives I questioned knew nothing about Charles H. Russell except that 'he came from somewhere in New York state'

Adalaide was of a tougher breed. She lived to be eighty-eight and always had lots of hard work to do. First, she helped raise Mary's children, and chores on a farm are never ending - especially when there were no boys in the family to help. Adalaide was educated and may have been a teacher at one time; the teachers of Solon Mills respected her and sought her advice. From the way she is mentioned in letters she seems to have been the mainstay in the family. In one letter it says she bought: a farm. her father, George, later had a quarrel with George Coates whom she later married. The matter was brought before a town council which ruled that George Coates had to move off the farm in January. Adailade wasn't at fault. From all that can be surmised, she kept the family together and put up with her father. When she was in her eighties she visited Colorado to live with a great niece, Kate Newcomb complete with old letters, a few pieces of furniture, and a parrot.

Caroline, the baby of the family, probably had to grow up the best she could. She didn't have very much formal schooling. She loved her stay with her grandparents in Coxsackie, but later neglected to write or keep in touch with them. She had lots of beaus who wrote, and when the Civil War gathered momentum she volunteered as a nurse, and left them behind. There is one delightful letter to her from an admirer which mirrors the timidity that boys had in meeting girls whom they fancied in 1862. But in the War zone, she worked valiantly with tenderhearted care until 1867 when she died of an ailment that she caught from one of her patients.

Go back to Steven Truesdell b 1778 | Greorge W. Truesdell | Mary C Truesdell (Russell)