Representative Thomas E. Turner View All Years
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Thomas E. Turner
Buchanan County
Born in New London, Connecticut, May 17, 1811. When quite young he removed to Butternuts, Otsego county, New York, where he remained until he was seventeen, and from that time till he was twenty-six, he attended school at Guilford academy, Guilford, New York. He was one year with a private teacher at Fly Creek, four years at Oneida institute, Whitesborough, New York, and two years at the Andover Theological institute. Here his health failed, and, after resting over a year, he began teaching. He opened a select school at Dundee in the fall of 1841, continuing until the spring of 1845. He then began teaching in the Starkey seminary, Starkey, Yates county, New York, where he taught two years. In the spring of 1848 he immigrated to Byron, Ogle county, Illinois, where he started a select school, and kept it up until the spring of 1853, when he came to Quasqueton. During the winter of 1853-54 he taught the Quasqueton school, in the west wing of the school-house. In the summer of 1854 he was elected a member of the legislature, representing Buchanan and Delaware counties, being there during the stormy session when a grant was given to the Chicago, Dubuque & Sioux City railroad. During the two winters, from 1855 to 1857, he taught at Quasqueton; was notary public and justice of the peace. On September 6, 1841, he was married to Martha Peer, of Starkey, New York. Mr. Turner was a gentleman of a very social disposition, who, as a teacher, a scholar, and a legislator, was known only to be respected. The high esteem in which his educational talent was held by the legislature, was evidenced by the position conferred upon him as chairman of the committee on public schools. Mr. Turner was a high-minded, honorable and fearless debater, in whom the cause of freedom and justice always found an eloquent champion.
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