Truman Beaman London    

LONDON, TRUMAN BEAMAN. The progenitors of T. B. London were English, and his grandparents on both the paternal and maternal side lived and died in Luzerne county, Pa. These were Edward London, a native of New Jersey, and Samuel Callender, born in Virginia. They won an honorable right to the soil of the Republic, for themselves and their posterity, by patriotic devotion to the spirit of 1776, during the long and trying carnage of the Revolution.

His father, whose name was Isaac, was born in New Jersey, and his mother, whose maiden name was Sarah Callender, was a native of Connecticut. The former died in Luzerne county in 1843, and the latter in Jefferson county in 1846.

Truman Beaman London was born in Luzerne county (now Lackawanna) on the 11th day of October, 1808, and was the second child of a family of nine. By self-endeavors and in the public schools he received a very thorough education in the place of his nativity, where he grew up to manhood, and where he was engaged in the lumber trade until 1837. He manufactured lumber and marketed it at Harrisburg, Columbia, Marietta, Port Deposit, and other points on the Susquehanna River.

On September 13, 1831, he was united in wedlock to Sally Mariah Slawson, which union was blessed with offspring numbering six, divided equally as to sex. Their names, in consecutive order of birth, are Martha Jane, born July 28, 1832; Eliza Mariah, March 9, 1834.; Truman Beaman, March 10, 1836; Isaac, September 3, 1838; Moses Slawson, January 31,1841; Mary Ann, May 29, 1842. The first and the last two are deceased. Their mother died June 23, 1842. Of those living, Isaac is a wide-awake and successful merchant of Reynoldsville, and a man greatly esteemed by all who know him; Truman B. is a successful farmer of Winslow township; and Eliza M., who married Andrew Johnston, is a resident of DuBois, Clearfield county, and the wise mother of an interesting family.

The subject of this biography emigrated from Luzerne county to Jefferson, locating in Brookville in 1837. Upon his advent there he found such representative citizens as Judge Heath, John Heath, the Dunhams, Dr. Jenks, Barclay Jenks, Drs. Bishop and Darling, who were the physicians of the town, Samuel Truby, Jared Evans, Levi G. Clover, Thomas Hastings, John Dougherty, etc. Barclay Jenks was the most brilliant member of the bar, and Mr. London, in his enthusiastic reminiscences of him, says: "It took somebody better than a Philadelphia lawyer to equal our backwoods Blackstone." Dr. Jenks, his father, and also father of the present Solicitor-General of the United States, George A., was then one of the associate judges. Judge Evans was in the banking business, known at that time as a "shin-plaster office." He issued notes in various denominations up to a do1lar, which were made current in the community, and when any one had accumulated these to the amount of five dollars or over, they were redeemable at the counter of the Judge, who gave large bills in exchange. Mr. London, who was in the mercantile business in a limited way, enjoyed the benefits of Evans’s banking system.
In 1840 Mr. London removed from Brookville, where he had been engaged in lumbering, to Perry township, and there cleared a farm purchased of C.C. Gaskill; and in 1843 he settled in Bell township in the midst of his lumber operations. Six years later he located permanently in Winslow township, near the site of his present residence, on the farm now occupied by Fulton Henry. He contracted matrimony again in 1846, by leading to the altar of Hymen Mrs. Sarah (Wilkins) Rea, who succumbed to the inevitable in 1878.

The record of T. B. London’s life is that of an active and useful man—useful to himself, his family, his community, and his county. Aside from clearing and working many farms, his lumber operations, in which he was a pioneer on Sandy Lick Creek, gave employment to hundreds of men at a time, when the less venturesome and poorer classes needed just such an enterprising spirit to lead them. He opened up roads, often at his own expense, leading into remote districts, thus creating settlements and adding to the population and welfare of the county. In his later years his capital has erected a score of houses in Reynoldsville and Winslow township, and was invested in a mercantile enterprise in the town mentioned for about eight years. His life has ever been identified with the best interests of the local public, vigilant at all times, and always ready to do good. He served one term as auditor of the county. To the church, too, he has been kind, giving generously to every creed that knocked on his heart, asking for help. His character and career may be summed up in this sentence: Honest, liberal, true, enterprising, companionable, intelligent, sagacious—and what more can be expected of a noble man!

History of Jefferson County : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers. Syracuse, N.Y.: D. Mason & Co. 1888   Search Hundreds of 1880s-1890s Pennsylvania County History Books for biographies and historical information on your ancestors.  View the book page images on line and print them out for your genealogy file!  Free Access to the old history books - plus birth & death records, census images and ALL other records at ancestry.com.