Turner, Charles C.

TURNER, SHAW, BRADBERRY, SEWELL, BUNKER, PARKS, PEASE, COOK, FISH

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 12/4/2008 at 08:35:45

TURNER, Charles C.
Farmer; Sec. 36; P. O. Colfax; born in Oxford Co., Me. in 1826; came to Adams Co., Ill. in 1834; thence to Jasper Co. in 1850. Owns 223 acres of land, valued at $50 per acre. He married Ann Eliza PARKS in 1854. She was born in Noble Co., Ind., Oct. 2, 1836; died May 10, 1856, leaving one child - Louis C., born in November 1854. He then married Mary C. PEASE June 4, 1866. She was born in Mansfield, Ohio in 1832. They have two children - Hugh P. and Eddie S. Formerly a Whig, and since the organization of the Republican party, a Republican. Has held the offices of County Clerk and Surveyor tow full terms, Justice of the Peace and Assessor four terms. Is a member of the A., F. & A. M. Lodge, No. 59, Newton. Enlisted in the 40th I. V. I. in 1862; sent home on recruiting service; spent the first Winter at Columbus, Ky., thence to Paducah, Ky., thence to Starstin on the Yazoo River, thence to Hanes' Bluff and Snyder's Bluff; after the fall of Vicksburg on Reserve; thence to Arkansas; participated in the taking of Little Rock, was the first to cross the river on pontoon Oct. 10, 1863; was sent home on the last of November of the same year on recruiting service; remained one month and was sent to Davenport, Iowa; was kept on duty at recruiting camp until April 1, following, and returned to the regiment; mustered out at Davenport, Iowa in 1864. Mrs. TURNER's father, Andrew PEASE, belonged to Co. I, 37th Iowa Graybeard Vols.; mustered in Dec. 15, 1862; died Jan. 10, 1862, guarding prisoners at Alton, Ill.* Note: Transcriber's note: The date of his death is BEFORE the date he was mustered in. This is not a transcription error, but is how it appears in the original. ~ "Poweshiek Township Biographies," The History of Jasper County, Iowa, (Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1878)
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Charles C. Turner, a prosperous and influential farmer, and, one of the oldest settlers in Poweshiek Township, was born in the state of Maine, August 15, 1826. His parents, Joseph and Nancy (Shaw) Turner, were born respectively in the states of Massachusetts and Maine. The Turner family came originally from England, and the records run far back beyond the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on the soil of the New World, but, like true Americans, the present representatives prefer to start with the great-grandfather of our subject, John Turner, who was a Captain in the Revolutionary War. He served with the infantry until stricken with smallpox at Saratoga, N. Y. His son Ebenezer was a native of Maine, a shoemaker by trade and a farmer by occupation; he left his native state in 1832 for the state of Illinois, and settled in Adams County, where he reared a family of five boys and two girls. Joseph was the father of our subject. Mary, now deceased, was the wife of E. Leverett. Edward died in this state. Ebenezer died in Quincy, Ill. Lewis was a great student and a man of fine education. Ann was the wife of Jonathan Bradberry. John is now residing in Adams County.

Joseph Turner, the father of our subject, was, both by inclination and education, a farmer. In 1834 he came west and settled in Adams County, Ill. He was three times married, and was the father of seven children. His first wife, the mother of our subject, gave birth to two, Catherine C., now the widow of Calip Sewell, of New York City, and Charles C. His second wife, Mary Bunker, a native of New Hampshire, brought him five children: Rufus, who is a resident of Atlanta, Idaho; Joseph F., of Quincy, Ill.; Frederick, who died in Adams County, where the family still resides; Ellen, of Quincy, Ill.; and Enoch, who died in Cherokee County, Kan., in 1889. In 1850 his second wife was taken from him, and later in life he married Mrs. Mary Turner. He died in 1883.

Charles C. Turner received his education in the common schools of Adams County, but is not a graduate of any college. In 1850 he arrived in Jasper County, Iowa, his possessions consisting of two horses, a wagon, a breaking plow, a land warrant and a very few dollars in money. With his land warrant he entered one hundred and sixty acres of land, and made such a judicious selection that he soon found himself in a position to engage in the real-estate business. In 1858 he purchased one hundred and twenty acres, on which he has since built himself a beautiful home, and to which he has added eighty acres more, all under a high state of cultivation. He is a thorough farmer and is successful in every department of the business, as both his prosperous condition and the record of his crops attest. The raising of fine hogs has been a specialty with him, but in 1892 he put in his first crop of winter wheat, and demonstrated the value of the methods adopted by him by raising a crop of twenty-four bushels to the acre.

He early answered the call of President Lincoln for troops, and in 1862 enlisted as a private in the Fortieth Iowa Infantry, under Captain Cozad and Colonel Garrett, and did service in the Seventh and Sixteenth Army Corps. His first engagement was at the siege of Vicksburg, where he was stationed in the Yazoo River bottoms on guard duty against the attack of Gen. Johnson, who was hourly expected from Jackson. From Vicksburg he was ordered first to Helena, Ark., thence to Little Rock, and remained in that city from the fall of 1863 to March of 1864, when his command was ordered to Ft. Smith, Ark. Here he continued on guard duty until January 1865. He was then ordered to Ft. Gibson, in the Cherokee Nation where his company was discharged. He was mustered out of service in Davenport, Iowa, August 211865, and returned to his home after an absence of three years. His family at this time consisted of his wife and one son.

Mr. Turner was married in 1854 to Miss Ann E. Parks, a native of Indiana. They had but one child, L. C., now a leading physician of Colfax, this county. In 1856 Mr. Turner lost his first wife, and in the following year married Mary C. Pease, a daughter of Andrew and Joanna M. (Cook) Pease, early settlers in this county. Mr. and Mrs. Pease were originally from Ohio, and were the parents of eleven children, of whom six survive: Frank L.; Mary C.; Willis M.; Edith M., wife of Edward G. Fish; Hugh A. and Marion W. Andrew Pease was a member of the celebrated "Gray Beard Regiment," the Thirty-seventh Iowa Infantry, in which no man under forty-five years of age was permitted to enlist. The oldest man in Mr. Pease's company-Company I-was seventy-five years of age. Mr. Pease did guard duty with his regiment at Muscatine, Iowa, and St. Louis and Herman, Mo. His last station was at Alton, Ill., where he died February 10, 1864. He was a close friend of General Curtis, with whom he had served in the same company of militia in Ohio previous to the war. Mrs. Pease died in 1893, in her eighty-third year. The maternal grandfather of Mrs. Turner, Daniel Cook, was a soldier in the War of 1812, and was stationed in the north. Her great-grandfather on her mother's side was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and served from the beginning to the end, a portion of the time as one of General Washington's lifeguards. He was captured and very severely treated by the British, but made his escape by swimming the Brandywine upon a cedar rail, which he used as a float.

The paternal grandfather, Andrew Pease, was in many of the wars with the Indians throughout Ohio, and was with the expedition at the time that Colonel Crawford was captured and burned at the stake. He succeeded in making his escape, and returned to Ft. Duquesne, near the site of the present city of Pittsburgh. The maternal grandfather, Daniel Cook, resided in Richland County, Ohio, and was one of the early agitators of the slavery question, being a radical Abolitionist.

Mr. and Mrs. Turner were the parents of three children, of whom only one survives, Edward S., who resides with his parents on the farm; the deceased are Eva and Hugh P. Mr. Turner is a member of Riverside Lodge No. 389, A. F. & A. M., a member of E. D. Duncan Post No. 53, G. A. R., and is also a Royal Arch Mason of Colfax. He was elected County Clerk in 1853, and assumed the duties of the office in January 1854, although at that time the salary would not support his family. He was one of the first County Surveyors, having been appointed to that position in 1854; he was elected again in 1859, and subsequently in 1867. He served two terms, or until 1872, and has since followed surveying as a private individual. He has filled all the township offices. He served as Secretary of the School Board, and was the first one to serve in that capacity under the new law. In 1852-53 Mr. Turner erected the third mill in the county for sawing lumber, and in the following year added a set of stones for grinding corn. This mill was located on Indian Creek, in this township, about two and one-half miles northeast of Colfax. Mr. Wiggins was associated with his at that time. Mrs. Turner in 1856 taught the first school in the township, at what is now School District No. 4. Her greatest attendance was not over twenty scholars and the average about twelve. For her services she received $12 per month and boarded among the students. Portrait and Biographical Record, Jasper, Marshall and Grundy Counties, IA Page 340.