"Someone has said that the reason that the United States has become the greatest of all nations is that its early colonists came here seeking God while those to other countries went seeking gold. Thus it was that to the shores of Eastern Virginia came a family of Friends hoping to find in a new country the right to worship in a way, which had been denied to them in the land they had left behind. Of this little band many had endured sufferings, persecutions and imprisonment because of their faith, and the marks of their hardships were plainly written in their gaunt frames and hollow cheeks.
Almost two hundred years before Hugh and Sarah Moffitt gathered a small group of Quakers in their home for worship, here in Boone County, my (12th) great-grandfather George Truitt was worshiping in the manner of Friends on the Eastern Shores of Virginia. Under his guidance a Friends' meeting was held at his home. A meetinghouse was erected on ground, which he had donated. The meetinghouse was small and plain, built, it is said, of logs. It had nothing in common with the great cathedrals of Europe.
The Quakers had first assembled in a ten-foot building in Northampton County, Virginia. However, by this date there was standing near Guilford Creek in Accomack County a small meetinghouse. At this time the owners of the remainder of tract A112 confirmed with George Truitt and five other trustees the conveyance of an acre of land "where now there is a small house standing by the name of the meeting house ... that the People of God commonly called Quakers shall have right and privilege from time to time to meet upon said ground and in the aforesaid meeting house and there at pleasure to meet and bury their dead." A later deed for the balance of the patent definitely placed the lot on the branch of Guilford Creek in the extreme northwest corner of the tract.
"It was here that George Truitt instilled in his family the principles of honest, upright living, which his descendants, now numbering many thousand, have carried to the remote places of the world.
I’m not writing this so much to commemorate a man long dead, nor a meetinghouse long forgotten, as I am to acknowledge that principles for which they labored are still a living force in our daily lives.
George Truitt was the first of his name to come to America, as has often been stated. Truitts are known to have been in New England, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia at later dates.
In 1660 the Virginia Assembly passed a strict law against Quakers, describing them as "an unreasonable and turbulent sort of people, who daily gather together unlawful assemblies of people, teaching lies, false visions, prophecies, and doctrines tending to disturb the peace, disorganize Society, and destroy all law, government, and religion."
Shortly after this date and the resulting persecutions, many Quakers looked kindly upon the religious freedom offered by the Maryland proprietors and moved up the peninsula across the state line.
Due to an epidemic of smallpox during the next few years following 1666, the mortality was great. Large numbers of whites died during the plague, and the disease became general among the Indians, who had been driven together upon reservations in remote sections of the peninsula. Panic-stricken, the Indians sought relief among the whites, thus spreading the disease with the most disastrous effects. At last the epidemic abated, having ravaged the land for several years, but not until the population had been seriously reduced and numbers of the best citizens had perished. As a Quaker, the Indians respected George Truitt and in their time of distress it is thought they sought him out for help, which may have led to his death perhaps from smallpox.
Not too much is known of the ancestry of George Truitt. Early history indicates all Truitts in America descended from George Truitt, who came to America from England about 1640. He is listed in Virginia Immigrants, Volume 5, State Land Office 20, in 1652. He initially settled in Northampton County, Virginia, but later moved to Accomack County. He was a Quaker and leading spirit among the people of that faith on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland. He was a prominent citizen of considerable means. George and his family were persecuted for their religious beliefs and so about the time of his death in 1670 and to escape persecution, some moved to an area of Somerset County, Maryland, which later became Worcester (and still later Wicomico) county while others moved into southern Delaware, which later became Sussex county.
This was the beginning of my family in America. I am sure that George had no idea, that over four hundred years later, and over 700 miles from where he held his first meeting of worship, that a direct descendent would be worshipping in a small rural Quaker meetinghouse as pastor.
I am thankful for the convictions of my early ancestors who help to establish freedom of religion in this county. The persecutions they endured, the meetinghouses they helped to establish, and the early missionary endeavors they supported all contributed to my heritage. The heritage that I will proudly pass to my descendents will also include Sugar Plain Friends Church, Thorntown Indiana.
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