The leading merchant and efficient postmaster of Mount Idaho, Matthew H. Truscott, has been a resident of this state since 1865, and has therefore been a witness of the greater part of its growth and development, has seen its wild land reclaimed for purposes of cultivation, its rich mineral storehouses give forth their treasures, and the forests yield their trees to be converted into the homes of white men, who thus replaced the tents of the Indians. He was a young man of only twenty years when he arrived in the territory, his birth having occurred in England, March 20, 1845. He was educated in the schools of his native land, there learned engineering and was for some time employed in that line of industry and at mining. In 1861 he went to Chili, and two years later proceeded up the Pacific coast to California, where he was engaged in mining and engineering until the spring of 1865, when he came to Idaho, making the journey on horseback through the Indian country, Nevada and the valley of the Humboldt river, to Idaho City, in the Boise basin. He remained there only a month or two, when, attracted by the gold excitement at Coeur d’Alene, he went to Clearwater station and mined in the different camps of Elk City and Newsom. He met with a fair degree of success and still has mining interests on the Clearwater.
On coming to Camas prairie he was employed as engineer in a saw and flouring mill until 1883, when he accepted the position of clerk in the Mount Idaho Hotel. In 1886 he was appointed by President Cleveland to the position of postmaster, an office which he has since filled most satisfactorily to the people of the town and most creditably to himself. He was also agent for the Wells-Fargo Express Company for two years, and in 1892 he entered into a contract with the firm of Vollmer & Scott to manage their general mercantile store in Mount Idaho. The following year he purchased that store, and has since carried on the business on his own account, having the principal establishment of the kind in the town. He is now enjoying a good trade and is meeting with excellent success in his undertakings.
In addition to his duties in the post office Mr. Truscott has performed other public service, having been deputy sheriff, deputy county assessor, deputy county treasurer and deputy school superintendent, and at the present time he is capably filling the position of county superintendent of schools. In his political affiliations he is a stalwart Democrat, and keeps well informed on the issues of the day, doing all in his power to promote the growth and insure the success of the party. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity and has attained the twentieth degree of the Scottish rite. In his life he exemplifies the benevolent and inspiring principles of the order, and throughout northern Idaho he is widely and favorably known.