Hugh+Truesdale+Family

== =Hugh and Victoria (Patton) Truesdale Family=

Hugh Truesdale (b. 1812) was the sole unmarried adult in the original party of 11 adults and children who first settled the Oak Creek valley in 1833. He struck out on his own with them, leaving his parents behind. Hugh wanted to be a farmer and raise mules, not become a mill operator for his father in the Big Piney River lumber camp area.

Hugh Truesdale married Victoria Patton on her sixteenth birthday that fall of 1833 that they first arrived in the valley. They had already been in love and planned to marry, but had to wait for her birthday. Earlier in the summer, they had arranged for the traveling pastor to return to the valley for their wedding on that very day.

With the full support of her parents, Jake and Kate Patton, both their farming and their mule breeding and training business interests were successful Victoria also worked in the General Store with her mother and served as Assistant Postmaster from 1846 to 1854 and as Postmaster from 1854 to 1865.

Hugh and Victoria were the parents of three children: 1. Jane, b. 1837 2. Lewis, b. 15 Jun 1843 3. Nellie, b. 1850

Hugh served as Eastern Trustee of Oak Creek Township from 1847 to 1860 when he was elected to the State Legislature. He continued to serve in the State Legislature throughout the war, maintaining an apartment residence in a northern county in his district during the conflict.

When Oak Springs was incorporated, in 1848, Hugh purchased two lots in town and was elected to the Town Council. Hugh, Victoria, and Nellie moved to a residence in Oak Springs full-time early in 1859. When Jane and Daniel McDonald were married in June of that year, they then made the Truesdale Homestead house their home.

Lewis married Caroline McDonald in 1864 on one of his leaves from serving as an officer in his grandfather's Cavalry Regiment. Lewis was one of the first to return to the Oak Creek valley following the end the war. He became a leader of those who returned and came to rebuild the agricultural and business interests in the valley.

Hugh and Victoria retained a home near Jefferson City following the war, and Hugh split his time among several locations related to both is political and business interests.

Their daughter, Nellie, did not marry. In 1870, she became a school teacher in Oak Springs.