Grand Army of the Republic, Truesdell Post Number 175

The Grand Army of the Republic, founded in 1866, in the year after the Civil War ended, was the first war veterans' association in the United States. Vienna Township's post, called the Truesdell Post (also Selden Truesdell Post), was the 175th established in the State of Ohio.

On behalf of the Vienna men who served in the Civil War, the Truesdell Post accepted from the Township the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in 1889.

Truesdell Family and the Civil War

Eight members of Vienna's Truesdell family enlisted for military service in the Civil War. Two did not return.

Like many of the earliest families to settle in Vienna, the Truesdells came from Connecticut and before that, from Massachusetts, and before that, from England. The Truesdell line may be traced to the English Puritans' Great Migration of the 1630s. In the first decades of the early nineteenth century brothers Joel and James Jonathan Truesdell, Sr., settled in Vienna, engaged in farming, and served in a variety of Township government duties. James Jonathan Truesdell, Sr., fought in the War of 1812.

Two generations later, eight descendants of these brothers enlisted in the Union Army. These men were:

• Brothers Albert Truesdell (1842-1862) and Allison Dural Truesdell (1845-1917), the sons of Ambrose Ives and Docia Derrow Woodford Truesdell;

• Brothers James Jonathan Truesdell, Jr. (1834-1903), Henry Shannon Truesdell (1838-1919), Selden Sloen Truesdell (1840-1864), John Hilliard Truesdell (1844-1909), and Edwin Earl Truesdell (1846-1903), the sons of Moses T. and Celia Barrett Truesdell; and

• James Warren Leet (1831-1873), the son of Sherman and Sarah M. Truesdell Leet.