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An American Tapestry of German, French and English Threads of Red, White and Blue
which contributed to our nation’s history
and expansion into East Texas
- by Dale Truitt (July 2013)
The designer/builder of the Truitt log home located in Jenkins was John Wingate Truitt born December 19, 1801 near the town of Snow Hill in Worcester County, Maryland. He was the oldest of his siblings Nancy, Elijah Henry and Margaret Truitt. John Wingate Truitt was a sixth generation American descending from George Truitt Sr. born in 1617 in Kent-Northumberland, England. George came to American in 1640 and settled in Accomack County, Virginia where he married his first wife Frances Graves Pennington in about 1645. Here the Truitts became Quakers and remained for three generations before moving north across the Maryland state line into Worcester County near Snow Hill were they remained for three more generations as Quakers.
In 1804, three year old John Wingate and his parents William Wingate and Tabatha Whaley Bratten Truitt were a part of a second westward migration of families and friends from Worcester County Maryland to the southern part of Smith County, Tennessee. This was the largest migration of families from Worcester County Maryland into Smith County, homesteading in an area which would become Liberty, the first town in what would also become DeKalb County, Tennessee.
The earliest settlers to arrive in this area of Smith Fork were Stephen Robinson and brothers John and Leonard Fite who had followed the lead of Adam Dale from Worcester County, Maryland. It is believed that Adam Dale who arrived in what would become Liberty in 1797, wrote back to his relatives and friends in Worcester County, Maryland telling them of the rich land, abundant wild life, and tall trees, encouraging them to move westward to Smith County in central Tennessee.
John Wingate was born in Worcester, Maryland while his siblings Nancy, Elijah Henry and Margaret were all born on the new frontier of southern Smith County which is now DeKalb County, Tennessee. On December 19, 1825, John Wingate Truitt married Elizabeth Jennings ‘Betsy’ Robinson, the granddaughter of two very prominent early Smith Fork settlers Stephen Robinson and Leonard Fite. Stephen with his wife Betty Holland Robinson the daughter of a Cumberland County, Virginia physician, migrated from Cumberland County Virginia to the DeKalb County area with their grown children and settled where the town of Temperance Hall would develop around them. Many Robinson descendants still reside there today.
John and Leonard Fite were next to the youngest of nine children of Johannes and Catharine Vogt – anglicized Fite. Johannes and Catharine probably met on the ship ‘Ann’ which had brought them to Philadelphia on September 28, 1749 where they were wed. Johannes had come from Hessen-Kassel next to Vogtland in Saxony. Five or so years after their landing the Fites moved their family to Greenwich Township, Sussex County, New Jersey where Johannes owned a mill, which afforded him the means to supply General Green’s army with supplies during the early Revolutionary war period. Their son Leonard Fite enlisted in the New Jersey Revolutionary Militia and served as a member of Capt. Hazlett’s ‘Minute Men’ for thirteen months.
Leonard married Margareth A. ‘Peggy’ Crose – anglicized Cross, of Oxford, Sussex County, New Jersey, on April 12, 1781. Leonard and his new bride moved across the state line into Pennsylvania where he owned 100 ac. of land. After the birth of three sons, Leonard’s family along with his brothers and sisters next moved to Lincoln County, North Carolina where several more of their children were born. In 1796 the families of John and Leonard Fite moved again to Nash’s Lick (Nashville) and then around 1798 they moved on down into lower Smith County where Dowell Town would develop in what is now Dekalb County. Here Leonard built a home where the last five of their twelve children were born. Leonard is buried alone in the Alexander Cemetery in DeKalb County, Tennessee.
A year after the marriage of Wingate and Betsy, John Wingate Truitt’s sister Margaret, married Betsy T. Robinson’s brother Edward ‘Ned’ Robinson making their children ‘double’ cousins.
Wingate and Betsy Truitt’s first four children Bill, Elijah, Sarah and Edward were born in Smith/DeKalb County, Tennessee respectively on January 10, 1828, December 10, 1929, February 23, 1832 and August 26, 1834. After these births the family of six moved from the ‘Fork of the Pikes’ area of Smith/DeKalb County, Tennessee to Etowah County, Alabama where they resided when Matilda Ann ‘Mat’ was born June 12, 1837 and James Leonard ‘Jimmie’ was born May 15, 1840.
Before November 1839, John Wingate Truitt went to Shelby County, Texas and applied for a third class Texas head right certificate for 320 acres of land as a married man with a wife and children and received unimproved land in what would become the Jenkins Community, located in the Morris County portion of Red River County. He was thus listed as a resident of Red River County on the 1840 Federal Census. Sometime after the birth of his sixth child, James Leonard Truitt, on May 15, 1840, John Wingate returned to Alabama and brought his family of eight to the area that would become the Jenkins community.
In Jenkins, Wingate Truitt built a dog-trot log cabin which was very reminiscent of those he grew up in and had experienced in Smith/DaKalb County, Tennessee, constructed using dove-tailed self-locking corners and with deep full length porches. The last two Truitt children Nancy Elizabeth and Wingate Henry were born in 1844 and on November 7, 1847 respectively in the John Wingate and Elizabeth Jennings Robinson Truitt Log home.
Today we have identified over 2,000 descendants of Wingate and Betsy Truitt’s eight descendants. Their home remains on its original site and was restored between 2011 and 2014 at a cost of $80,000, back to its original shape. The Texas Historic Commission has proclaimed this site a Texas Historic Archaeological Site and the cabin a Texas Historical Landmark serving as a reminder and tribute to the values and strong work ethics early settlers brought to the frontiers of East Texas.
The home site was probably selected due to the location of a high knoll 250 feet to the north of an old Jefferson to Dallas roadway and due to its proximity to a natural spring which Mandy a slave girl located in front of the cabin near the Jefferson to Dallas road bed.
Sometime after the cabin was completed in 1840, Wingate dug a 60 foot deep well some 120 feet northeast of the cabin’s back porch. Smoke house and privy out buildings have been reconstructed and stand to the north of the cabin’s back porch.
A barn would have been much further to the north of the cabin.
Cabin logs of 18’ in length and 10.5” to 11.5” in diameters were cut and shaped to a cross sectional thickness of 5”, from short needle pine trees which were abundant on the site. The foundation and two fireplaces were constructed of iron ore rocks which were also abundant on the site.
When Wingate Truitt constructed the dog-trot log home in 1840, he was 38 years of age, his oldest two sons’ Elijah and Bill would have been eleven and twelve years of age. Thus, they likely would have been of some help since at the time children were encouraged to assume family responsibility early in life to be an asset and credit to their parents.
John Wingate and Elizabeth Jennings Robinson Truitt are buried 250 yards northeast of the cabin in Clark Cemetery which was a part of the original Truitt head right. There is a Republic of Texas medallion in front of their head stone denoting they were citizens when Mirabeau B. Lamar, Sam Houston and Dr. Anson Jones were Presidents of the Republic of Texas. The fourth and sixth descendants of Wingate and Betsy Truitt - Edward Robinson Truitt and his wife Sarah Ann ‘Sallie’ Logan Truitt, James Leonard Truitt and his wife Mary Louisa ‘Ludie’ Lilley Truitt and many of their children are also buried in Clark Cemetery.
The oldest two descendants of Wingate and Betsy Truitt – Wm Ed ‘Bill’ Truitt along with his second and third wives Elizabeth M. ‘Eliza’ Hefner Truitt and Rebecca Elizabeth Collier Minor Truitt; and Elijah Thomas Truitt along with his wife Analiza E. ‘Ann’ Walker Truitt are buried 20 miles southwest of Jenkins near Gilmer in the Concord Baptist Church Cemetery in Upshur County along with many of their children and grandchildren. Sarah Ann Truitt Richey is buried in the Pine Forrest Cemetery in east Hopkins County. Matilda A. ‘Matt” Truitt Hefner is buried in the Gilmer City Cemetery next to her first husband Crawford Sylvanus Hefner. Wingate Henry Truitt and his second wife Mattie Ellen Lilley Truitt are buried next to each other in the Greenwood Cemetery in Wise County while Wingate Henry’s first wife Susan Elizabeth Clark Truitt who died early in their marriage is buried in the Clark Cemetery at Jenkins.
In conclusion, families with visions for opportunity and a better life, with means, and a commitment to hard work were the ones who moved westward, settling the new frontiers while leaving behind developed towns with convenient services, law and order, such as our ancestors who migrated from Maryland to Tennessee, Alabama and on to Texas or from Pennsylvania to North Carolina, Tennessee and on to Texas. These moves were always hard and demanded the commitment of family members, friends and neighbors. We are blessed to still own and treasure our small humble log home which is representative of the commitment of our German – Vogt/Fite, Crose; our French – Trewett; and our English – Holland, Marryman, Ford, Thompson, Coleman, Robinsons, etc. ancestors.
Dale Truitt
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