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Last month our person of the month was Judge Robert Trimble. This month we are going to look at the man, James Trimble, father, who inspired his sons to do great things.
Captain James Trimble was born in Augusta County, Virginia, son of John Trimble and Mary Christian Moffett in 1756, and died in 1804, in Kentucky.
Around the age of eight years, James and his father John were captured by Indians at the second Kerr massacre. John was killed and James was rescued by his half brother Captain
George Moffett who, four years later became his guardian on March 18, 1768.
James fought in the battle at Point Pleasant during the Revolutionary War, commanding a company of Virginia Militia, and received a land grant for his military service. He moved
his family, wife Jane Allen, 2 daughters and six sons to Fayette Country near Lexington, Kentucky in 1784. James acquired slaves to work the land and in 1802 resolved to free his slaves, convinced that slavery was unjust. He freed his bondsman and
was moving his family to the Northwest Territory on the Ohio River, where slavery was prohibited, when he died before the move was completed. His son Allen became the head of the family, completing the family move as his father had planned.
An article on Allen Trimble (Ohio governor X 2 terms) was published in the first issue of Clan Prints in the Sands in September of 2001. Next month we will look at another son
Judge John Trimble.
It is interesting to note that TCA has several active members who are descendents of these gentlemen and their forefathers.
Annie Henderson lived in the north of Ireland. Her family was “Quality.” (They had a pew in the Kirk.) Angus McDonald, a soldier was stationed in the north of Ireland. (He
stood 6 feet 2 inches in his stocking feet.) Theirs was a run-away match. They had seven |
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little girls: Annie, Mary, Margaret, Elizabeth, Catherine, Frances, and Isabella (Grandma). The mother died of a fever, and the father away fighting under Wellington in Egypt. (The doctor sat him down and
cried.) Afterwards Catherine and Frances died of a fever.
Grandma went to the Reading school and learned to read but in Writing school she got a blot on her copy book and the master whacked her hand. She never went back. She worked in the cotton mills as a weaver till
she was about eighteen when she married William Turnbull and they came to America, to Maryland.
He had two brothers, Hector and Thomas. One was a teacher and the other an actor in London (Shakespearian plays). He also had an uncle Gavin who wrote poetry. Violet used to have a book of Robert Burns’ poems
with some of his in the back.
Well, they were married and came to America when about 19 to Maryland. It was a slave state, so afterwards they came to Illinois then to Minnesota. Their children were:
John (died in infancy),
Thomas (1 child, died in infancy),
Annie (my mother) Mabel,
William, not married
John (Leslie, Florence Buller, Everett, Arthur)
George (Violet’s father)
Mary – “Aunt Mary” (Charles, died in infancy, Edith, Albert Roy, Irving, Margaret)
Charles (not married)
Grandma Turnbull’s sisters:
Annie, married and stayed in Scotland (I know nothing about her)
Mary, married Mr. Harris, a good-for-nothing. Two children, a boy who stayed in Scotland and a girl Jane who came with her mother to America as a baby. She contracted Smallpox on the ship and was terribly pocked. She lived for many years with Aunt
Bessie.
Margaret, married Mr. McKinley. Their children were John, George, Sandy, William, Sarah, Isabel. Margaret died of blood poisoning not very old. John was killed in the Civil
War. George and Sandy lived on farms near Cannon Falls and had families, mostly boys. I knew them slightly. William was a Methodist preacher. I knew him quite well at Winona. Sarah married Mr. Williamson, also a farmer near Cannon Falls.
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