CHAPTER VIII
PROSPECT FARM.
Thompson Trueman, the youngest member of the family, was married in March, 1823, to Mary Freeze. He was only twenty-two years old, and young looking for that age. He used to say in later life that he married at just the right time. His wife was a daughter of Samuel Freeze, of Upper Sussex, King's County. Her mother was Margaret Wells, daughter of Williams Wells, of Point de Bute.
The Freezes came from Yorkshire to Cumberland in the DUKE OF YORK, the first vessel that landed Yorkshire emigrants at Halifax. Charles Dixon, the founder of the Dixon name in Sackville, with his family, came out at this time. The Freeze family, when they arrived in Nova Scotia, consisted of William Freeze, sen., his son William, with his wife and two children. Wm. Freeze, sen., remained in this country only a short time. It was supposed the vessel in which he took passage for England was lost, as his family never heard of him again.
The son, William, was a mason by trade, but settled on a farm in Amherst Point, now occupied by the Keillor brothers. He remained in Cumberland until the first of the present century, and then removed to Sussex, King's Country, N.B. He had become rather discouraged in his efforts to reclaim the salt marsh, and came to the conclusion that it would never be of much value.
It is said that Mr. Freeze and his two sons started in a small boat for Kentucky. When they got as far as the mouth of the Petitcodiac River, they turned their boat up the stream, going with the tide to the head of the river. Leaving the boat, they plunged into the forest and tramped for some distance. At last they concluded they had lost their way and were not likely to reach Kentucky on that route. After some consultation, the father climbed to the top of a tall tree, and from this altitude the rich interval lands of the Upper Kennebecasis were full in view.
"There is a valley," said Mr. Freeze, "and there is where my bones are to be laid."
Here Mr. Freeze got a grant of nine hundred acres of land, enough to make farms for himself and his four sons. William, a son, was a great reader and student. He was very fond of mathematics, and it is said that sometimes when he and his boys would go to the field to hoe, he would take a stick and mark on the ground a mathematical figure, and then demonstrate it for the benefit of his boys. The dinner horn would sound, and no potatoes had been hoed that morning. John, another son, was a fine singer and took great pleasure in giving singing lessons to the young people in the neighborhood. The Freezes could all sing, and most of the men were handy with the mason's tools, which led some wag to say that the Freezes were all born with stone hammers in one hand and a note-book in the other. Charles, the fourth son, was a half- brother and inherited the home farm. Charles was a great reader and was very fond of history. He was eccentric in some ways and would take long journeys on foot.
He did not take kindly to railway travel, and his nephews liked to tell about his planning one day to go by rail instead of walking, but going to the station before the train arrived, he said he "couldn't be detained" and started away on foot.
There were two daughters. Miriam married Matthew Fenwick, of Maccan, N.S., who afterward moved to the Millstream, in King's County, and was the first to plant the Fenwick name in that county.