person.

On the 29th January, 1800, Mrs. Trueman, sen., died in the eighty-
eighth year of her age. Although sixty-two years old when she came to
America, she lived to see the birth of nine grandchildren.

In 1801, Thompson, the youngest son, was born. The family now numbered
seven sons and three daughters. This year William Black, known in
Methodist history as Bishop Black, was one of the family at Prospect
from November 17th, 1801, to April 13th, 1802. One week of this time
was spent in Dorchester, for which a rebate was made in the board bill.
The bill was made out at the rate of five shillings per week.

In 1802, Mr. Trueman began to keep what he calls "a memorandum of
events." The records chiefly refer to home work, the weather and
neighborhood happenings. As a record of the weather, before
thermometers and barometers were in general use, it must be as perfect
as possible. As a record of farm work it is quite minute, and gives the
reader an almost exact knowledge of what was done on the farm each week
of the twenty years.

To those who live in the age of steam and electricity, when it is
possible to be informed at night of the doings of the day on the other
side of the planet, it is hard to realize how little interest was taken
a century ago in anything outside of the community in which one lived.
This accounts in part, no doubt, for the scant references in this
journal to public events. Only very rarely is an election mentioned,
even in the writer's own county. Only once is there reference to war,
although the war of 1812 and the battle of Waterloo took place during
the years of the record, and must have had a marked effect upon the