The next large fortune acquired at Truro was by Mr. Lemon. A short account of this very extraordinary person has been given under Germoe parish. His very splendid career, not merely of acquiring wealth, but of high reputation for himself and of benefit to his country, began in the neighbourhood of Penzance; and his removal to Truro is understood to have been occasioned by the discernment of Mr. Coster, a gentleman concerned in copper smelting works at Bristol, and a representative in Parliament for that city.
Mr. Coster greatly augmented his fortune by purchasing the copper ores of Cornwall, for some time without a competitor; and undertaking to work some of the Gwennap mines in depth for copper, which had previously been productive of tin, he selected Mr. Lemon for one of his partners, with unlimited confidence in managing the whole concern.
Mr. Lemon was succeeded by Mr. Daniell, who took the whole of his great mercantile concerns off the hands of Mr. Lemon’s executors in 1760, having acquired the command of capital by his marriage with Miss Elliot, niece of Mr. Allen, of Bath. The late Mr. John Vivian acquired also a large fortune residing in Truro; and of persons now living, several might be added to the list.
Mr. Richard Hussey has been noticed in the parish of
Feock as an eminent lawyer, and likely to have attained some of the highest honours of the profession; he died unmarried in 1770. His father, who practised in Truro as an attorney, was the son of the Reverend John Hussey, vicar of Okehampton in Devonshire.
The late Mr. John Thomas may also be included among those who have acquired fortunes and displayed ability at Truro: after retiring early in life to Chiverton, a paternal property in Perran Zabuloe, where he built an excellent house, Mr. Thomas was placed in the honourable office of Vice-Warden, which he executed with great credit for more than thirty years.
Among persons distinguished for talents, one cannot omit Mr. Samuel Foote; he was born here about the year 1720, although the family seat was Lambessa, in the adjoining parish of St. Clement. His mother was the sister of Sir John Dinely Goodere and of Samuel Goodere, a Captain in the Navy, whose history almost equals in depth of misery the well-known tragedy of Penryn; and it is a curious circumstance that Mr. Foote’s first publication is a complete narrative of this most melancholy affair, in a pamphlet signed with his name, and addressed to Henry Combe, Esq. then Mayor of Bristol, in 1741. Mr. Foote’s life and adventures are before the public in various forms.
Recently two natives of Truro have distinguished themselves throughout Europe by a most important geographical discovery. The Mr. Landers, as is well known, descended a large river from the interior of Africa to the sea, at what is called the Bite of Benin, where the river loses itself by flowing in divided streams through a delta created by the deposit of alluvial debris, brought down from the highlands by the force of its own current.
A monument is now constructing on an elevated piece of ground at the southern extremity of the town, in memory of the brother, who has most unfortunately lost his life in a second expedition, intended for the establishment of a
friendly and commercial intercourse with the inhabitants of countries thus brought within our reach.