In the Spotlight features people that have helped build, shape, or improve the town of Chillicothe. Some of the key people in the development of our town were the Truitts. Because of the vast amount of information I’ve acquired, this will be a two-part story that will be in the May and June issues.

The patriarch, Henry Truitt, I was born in 1819 in Vevay, Switzerland County, Indiana. He was the first of 4 children of William H. Truitt who died in 1828 at the age of 37. Henry was only 9 years old at the time of his father’s death.

From the age of 13–18, Henry worked in grain delivery and sales. In 1838 at the age of 19, along with his business partner, Tobias Bradley, he worked in grain commerce on the lower Ohio and Mississippi rivers. When he was 24, he married Frances Goddard in Indiana. They had two daughters, Sarah and Frances.

In 1850 Henry arrived in Chillicothe, when Chillicothe was a “hamlet” (a settlement smaller than a town or a village.) It was then he bought 200 acres, and established the firm of Truitt and Jack, a grower and distributor of grain and produce to Chicago and St. Louis from Chillicothe. About this time Henry platted the first four plats of Chillicothe, laying out streets and building lots.

In 1851 he started another grain, lumber, and produce business. According to past documents, they were doing a booming business in both buying and selling grain and lumber. It became so very successful they opened a warehouse on Water Street. In 1853 Henry was shipping grain between Chicago and St. Louis.

In 1855, a son, Henry Truitt II, was born. The boy only lived 9 months. Then in 1886 his wife Frances died at the age of 39. In 1865 Henry remarried Eliza Dennis. That year Henry bought Samuel Jack’s interest in the grain business and took on J.W. Fuller as a partner. In 1866 Eliza gave birth to a son, Rollin Henry Truitt, in Chillicothe.

In 1866 with P.T. Matthews, SC Jack, and Harvey Holman the three men started Truitt-Matthews Bank in Chillicothe. Henry was a large stockholder in the concern and president.

Henry worked in the grain business until he retired in 1872. Handing it over to J.W. Fuller and soon after that he turned the lumber business over to his son-in-law, Nathan Stewart Cutright.

In 1877, Henry was Mayor of Chillicothe for two terms. Henry was one of the leading financiers and businessmen in the county. He was a pioneer merchant in Chillicothe and he was connected with every enterprise that evolved for the advancement of the business and social interests of the city. He was known as, “The Father of Banking.” Henry died in 1884 and is buried in the city cemetery. Shortly after Henry’s death, the City of Chillicothe changed the name of Willow Street to Truitt Avenue.

Rollin Henry Truitt was born in 1866 in Chillicothe, the only son of Henry and Eliza Truitt. Rollin lived his entire life in Chillicothe. He married Effie Johnston. Rollie as he was called, was primarily a banker at his father’s bank Truitt-Matthews where he eventually became president for a time.    

Rollin had his hand in many other endeavors. In 1888, Rollie and AC Thomas went to St. Louis to buy cars for the People’s Railway Company. In 1897 he resigned from his position as a cashier at the bank to pursue other business interests but retained his interests at the bank.

In 1899, the Rock Island elevator was now under new management and called the Chillicothe Grain Co. Rollin was the manager and takes charge. In 1900 he was employed as a grain buyer. Business is good and in 1901 he and E.B. Colwell expand their business to Galesburg. Charles Hoyt managed the business.

In 1905 Rollin bought two wood buildings in Chillicothe on Second Street north of City Hall. One of the buildings is for personal use and the other would be leased to Wm. Krieg for a bowling alley. Buildings were going up fast in town using hydraulic pressed bricks from the Sparland brickyards. 

Rollin went back to the banking business from 1811 to 1820. Still, Rollin had many other interests, ideas, and talents. One of his ventures was investing in a business to build a better mouse trap, but that didn’t work out. He also designed a racing boat and named it the “Skipalong.” The boat was 34 feet long and equipped with a 6-cylinder, 40-hp Roberts motor. For the second year in a row, (after winning last year with the boat Adieu) he won the time prize (fastest boat) in a race from Peoria to Henry. Rollin hired a firm to design a house for their only child Henry and his wife Helen and gave the newlyweds the house for a wedding present, it was known as the “bridal house.”

Rollin Truitt died in 1938 in Oshkosh Wisconsin at the home of his nephew Charles Hoyt at the age of 72.