Biography of James B.
Turner
This biography appears in
"History of Gallatin, Saline, Hamilton, Franklin
and Williamson Counties, Illinois" published by Goodspeed (1887)
James B. TURNER, lawyer, proprietor of the woolen and gristmills, and farmer, of
Ewing, was born November 27, 1835, near Oswebo, N.Y., the youngest of eight
children (six deceased) of Charles W. and Sallie (SPENCER) TURNER, the former of
Irish-English stock, born in 1787 in New York, and the latter of English origin,
born in 1790, also in New York. The maternal grandfather was a general in the
Revolution and aid-de-camp to Gen. Washington. The parents were married in New
Haven, and for several years engaged in merchandising in New York. He then
became land commissioner, and settled near Oswego, N.Y., where he owned large
tracts of land, and became proprietor of a hotel. About 1834 he became agent for
the Western Emigrating Association, and moved near the site of Kenosha, Wis.,
where he died in 1841, and the mother in 1845. Our subject attended school in
Wisconsin, at St. Louis, and at Waverly, Ill., graduating from the law
department of Bloomington (Ind.) State University. When twelve years old he
lived a year with his brother at Waverly. They moved to St. Louis in 1847, and
here engaged in driving hack, working in livery stables, clerking in commission
houses, and attending night schools until 1852, when he left St. Louis and went
to Springfield, and a few months later to Terre Haute, then New Orleans on a
flatboat. He soon began a tour of the South, and in 1853 settled in
Elizabethtown, Ill., where he studied and practiced law until his Bloomington
law school life began in 1857. In the fall of 1859 he began practicing at
Shawneetown, where he married in the following spring. He originated the charter
of the city which exempted it from State taxation for twenty years, to enable
them to build a levee. In 1862 he was elected to represent Gallatin, Hardin and
Saline Counties in the Legislature, and served on term. From 1873, for a year,
he lived in Mount Vernon, Ill., and from 1874 to 1885 he was at Ewing engaged in
merchandising, woolen-milling and farming; he then sold his merchandise to W. A.
DUNBAR. He was also engaged in his law practice, and is now a member of the
Illinois bar. His wife, Eleanor, daughter of John D. and Judith M. (WILLIAMSON)
RICHESON was born April 9, 1840, at Shawneetown. Their children are John D. R.,
James B., Charles W., Jesse M., Minnie and Eugene R. He has been successful as
an attorney, and was associated with Gen. LOGAN, Judges MARSHALL, ALLEN, DUFF,
TOMLEASEY, BAKER, WALL and N. L. FREEMAN, reporter of the supreme court, et al.;
while at Mount Vernon he drafted the bill which became the charter of Ewing
College. He is a Democrat with Greenback and Prohibition sympathies, and first
voted for Buchanan. He is an Odd Fellow and a Member of the encampment at
Equality. The entire family are Methodists. His wife's mother was a widow of
James CARROLL, of the CARROLL family, of Carrollton, Md.
Typed by Lynne Johnston Westra