Richard Truman, an English
gentleman, came over from Salisbury, Wiltshire, England in 1715 with
his wife Martha and son Thomas. He
purchased the Springhead Plantation outside of Abington, Pennsylvania
for £107 gold where he proposed to live the life of a country
gentleman. He and his wife were devout
Quakers (Friends) and wished to live in William Penn's colony with others of
their religious persuasion. His son
James (the elder) married Mary Llewellyn in 1743. (The Llewellyn name has stayed in the family
nomenclature since that time.) James
lived with Mary in Philadelphia
as a "gentleman of leisure" as it was termed in those days and they
had five sons. His fourth son, James
Truman (the younger) became a coppersmith but changed over to tin plate working
because coppersmithing was so closely related to distilling and being a good
Quaker he did not care for the association (and probable requests to make
whiskey stills). The family history says
that James ″was of a mechanical turn and inventive genius” and
received patents for a stove and a steam washer. James and his brother Evan Truman were among
the original 28 founders of the Harmony Fire Co. of Philadelphia. In those days men formed voluntary
associations to fight fires. They
purchased the fire fighting equipment and responded to calls in the city.
James and his wife Phoebe
Moore Truman had nine children, seven surviving to adulthood. Phoebe's father, Joseph Moore was active in
the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, the oldest abolitionist organization in the
United States which was formed in 1775 with the mission, “Relief for Free
Negroes unlawfully held in Bondage”, and “improving the Condition of the African
Race”. As a member “he was for some
years on the committee to visit the prisons in search of such colored persons
as might be committed legally or otherwise on the charge of being fugitive
slaves and to insure them a fair trial”.
James and Phoebe's eldest son,
Joseph Moore Truman, studied the science and technology of the day and was one
of the earliest members of the Franklin Institute. In 1816 he designed a fire truck for the
Harmony Fire Co. of Philadelphia which they had built at a cost of
$900.00. He joined the Pennsylvania
Abolition Society in 1818 and his wife was one of the original members of the
Female Anti Slavery Society. He also served
on the Board of Managers of Pennsylvania Hall.
Pennsylvania Hall was a grand
structure once called "one of the most commodious and splendid buildings
in the city" of Philadelphia
and was built to provide a forum for discussing "the evils of
slavery," as well as other matters "not of an immoral
character." The anti-slavery
movement was not generally popular at that time even in the north and the hall
was built because abolitionists had such a difficult time finding space for
their meetings. A joint-stock company was formed to finance the construction.
Two thousand people -- abolitionists, mechanics and other workers, women, and
prominent citizens -- bought shares in the company that sold for $20 apiece.
Those who could not afford to buy shares donated materials and labor. Forty
thousand dollars was raised to construct the building. The building was opened on the morning of May
14, 1838 -- a Monday. On Thursday evening, after four days of dedication
ceremonies and abolition-related meetings, the building was burned to the
ground by an angry pro-slavery mob.
The riotous mob continued to
strike over the following days, setting a shelter for black orphans on fire and
damaging a black church. An official
report blamed the abolitionists for the riots, claiming that they incited the
violence by upsetting the citizens of Philadelphia
with their views and for encouraging "race mixing".1
The violent actions of the mob were a
key element in turning public opinion in the north against slavery.
Joseph Moore Truman was issued
a variety of patents including ones for leaded tin plate used in roofing and
the original Solar oil lamp. He was also
active in politics and was elected by the Whig party to serve on the Board of
Commissioners of the Spring
Garden district of
Philadelphia. He married Sarah Shaw in
1817 and they had eight children.
Sarah Shaw was the daughter of
George and Mary Toplin Shaw. George Shaw
was born in Craightoun, Scotland,
near Glasgow.
His father was a blacksmith who worked in the shop where James Watts
developed the first steam engine. George
emigrated to America at the start of the
revolution and fought at the battle of Germantown. He developed tuberculosis during his military
service and the disease eventually caused his death. He was a strict Presbyterian and, while he
considered the Quakers to be a good moral people, he did not hesitate to say
that their salvation was impossible. Nevertheless,
on his deathbed he told his wife she could join the Friends if she chose.
Joseph Moore Truman's son,
George Shaw Truman, inherited some of his Scottish grandfather‘s temperament. A strident abolitionist, George became a
manager of a farm located on the King's Highway where he operated a station in
the Underground Railroad. He later
operated a station in Virginia for a year just
before the start of the Civil War. His
uncle, Dr. George Truman, began his life as a carpenter, studied medicine and
became a practicing physician in the middle of his life and later studied
dentistry. He was also known as an
ardent abolitionist preacher; so much so that Hofstra University
calls him the Rev. George Truman when referencing his letters in their
collection. He preached in the Border States with Sojourner Truth, the noted black
abolitionist leader and lecturer, and he was a proponent of religious tolerance
saying: “that in every nation, he that fearth God and workth Righteousness is
accepted of him”.
The Trumans worked with other
Quaker families in Philadelphia in founding Swarthmore College
in 1864 and Swarthmore retains many of the Truman family marriage certificates,
photographs, business account books and other records in its archives. The Friends wanted to create an institution
of higher learning to promoted racial equality and the rights of women.
George Shaw Truman married
Susan Yardley Knight in 1848. Even
though the Knights were observant Quakers and thus pacifists, Susan’s great
grandfather, Giles Knight, thought that the American Revolution was important
enough that, as a matter of conscience, he contributed substantially to the
revolutionary cause. After the Civil War
George Truman received a position from the Friends to teach the Native
Americans on the Santee Indian Reservation in Nebraska
how to farm the land. The Friends felt
that it was important that the Native Americans learn how to become a self
sufficient part of American society.
George and Susan had four children, the second child, Joseph Llewellyn
Truman married Mariana Birdsall of Lincoln,
Virginia. They had become acquainted during the time
his father worked in the Underground Railroad.
Joseph Llewellyn and Mariana Birdsall
Truman left Nebraska with their three children,
Llewellyn Edgar, George and Marian in 1900.
They loaded their livestock and possessions into a rented railroad box
car and moved south on a journey that ended in Victoria
with short stays in Jennings, Louisiana and San Antonio.
Their eldest son, Llewellyn
Edgar Truman, called L.E. by the family, approached the Levi Bank & Trust
about obtaining a loan for farm property in the Bloomington, Texas
area. The bank, in all its wisdom,
convinced L.E. to take a bankrupt drayage company off its hands in a barter
swap transaction that involved a house he had built of Louisiana
cypress wood on DeLeon Street.
Operating out of a dirt floor
building on DeLeon street, L.E., together with
his father and his sister, formed Truman Transfer Co. as a Texas
corporation in 1912. For the first two
years of its existence Truman Transfer used only animal power for its
transportation needs. The animals
included mules, horses and a Percheron for heavy drayage. The company provided bus service from the
Southern Pacific train depot to the Denver and
Delaware hotels and transportation for special
events such as dances in Telferner. The
event would be advertised in the Victoria Advocate and Truman buses (there were
four) would pickup the passengers at DeLeon
Plaza and return them there after
the event.
The Trumans also owned heavy
duty, quad axle dray wagons along with buckboards and tack. The company joined the mechanical age in 1914
when L.E. went to San Antonio and purchased up
a new yellow Fulton truck. The Fulton
came with a flat head two cylinder engine and could achieve up to 17 miles per
gallon under full load. After the Fulton came a 1914 Buick touring car that was used to
provide limousine service in the Victoria
area. By the late 1920's all the
livestock had been retired.
Once a week L.E. would load up
a truck at Victoria Hardware with items that had been ordered the week before
and take them on a day long journey through northern Victoria County,
dropping them off, receiving orders for the next week, and picking up farm
products to take to town. On a darker
side, his father Joseph Llewellyn ran the casket wagon. There was a special phone line that ran into
his bedroom and people would call him when there was a death; he would contact
employees who would take a buckboard to pickup the body and deliver it to the
mortician of the family’s choice. During
the flu epidemic of 1918 the equipment was kept very busy, but fortunately none
of the family or its employees were infected.
L.E. married Hattie Grace Dean of San Antonio
in 1917 and began a family of Joseph Dean, Clinton Earl and Rose Carol
Truman. In the meantime, L.E.'s sister
Marian Truman, married Anton Fischer of Victoria.
By the 1930's Truman Transfer
was strictly a trucking company that hauled oil field equipment, farm products,
livestock and household goods. Within
ten years the company had given up the oil field and agricultural part of the
business to concentrate on freight and household goods. During World War II the military opened
Foster Field air base and Truman Transfer began a relationship with the
military that has continued to this day.
L.E. Truman and his father
both passed away in the mid 1930's and while Joseph Dean, called Dean by family
and friends, and Earl were both serving in the army, their mother Grace Truman
managed the company during the war.
After the war Dean built a quonset metal warehouse on DeLeon
street from army surplus warehouse parts. Several of these buildings can still be seen
in the Victoria area. All were originally designed by the military
with double headed nails to allow the buildings to be rapidly disassembled in
the field for transportation, but they are permanently fixed to foundations
today.
Dean was with General George
S. Patton's army in the occupation of Austria. It was there that he met Friederike Höllhuber
in Bad Hall, Austria in 1945. Three years of correspondence and he was
convinced to invite Frieda over to Texas to be
his wife. They have four children,
Deborah Dean, Donald Ray, Frieda Marie and Joseph Llewellyn Truman.
In 1958 Dean Truman built the
front section of the current Truman Transfer facility on Ben
Jordan Street and after his death in 1976 his son Don and wife
Frieda built a tilt-slab concrete addition.
The buildings were designed with an eye towards the weather. Only one year after completion of the
original front section of the warehouse Hurricane Carla came through Victoria with no damage to the building.
References:
1. Judgment Day: People
& Events: Pennsylvania Hall 1838
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2938.html