Samuel Fredrick Turner [RG4205.AM]

HISTORY NEBRASKA MANUSCRIPT FINDING AID

RG4205.AM:  Samuel Fredrick Turner, 1848-1923

Papers:  1884-1923

Wilber and Saline County, Nebraska:  Farmer

Size:  4 volumes

BACKGROUND NOTE

Samuel Fredrick Turner was born September 19, 1842 in Bristol County, Massachusetts.  His mother, Abigail, died when he was nine, and because his father, Captain Samuel J. Turner, was away at sea, young Samuel lived with his maternal grandparents, Nathaniel Haskins and Experience Holloway Haskins.  Samuel only saw his father once from the time he was nine until he was sixteen years old.  He worked to help support the family, learning several different trades:  shoe making, stove moulding, and silver plating.  In the spring of 1867 he moved to Illinois near Tonica, where he met Mary Grant Perry, whom he married on February 5, 1868.  The couple worked a small farm in the area until advertisements about the rolling prairie land in Nebraska brought the family west in 1876.  They settled on a farm four miles southwest of Wilber, Nebraska.  Mary died August 16, 1893.  Samuel died at the farm on January 9, 1923.

Note: For further information about Samuel F. Turner and the Turner Family, see the reminiscences of his son, Charles M. Turner, in collection RG1478.AM.

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

This collection consists of four volumes relating to the life and work of Samuel F. Turner.  The first three volumes are daily diaries dating from 1898 to 1923.  The last volume is an account book dating from ca. 1884 to 1907.  The diaries contain brief daily entries from October 1898 through January 8, 1923, the day before Turner’s death.  Topics include weather conditions, farm work, animal reports, activities of family and friends, etc.  The entries in the account book are somewhat sporadic.  They span the years 1884-1907, but are more complete between 1884 and 1893. It contains account entries, a few receipts, breeding records for horses and cattle, and some clippings.

(Acc.85-30)

INVENTORY

Box 1

Volume

1. 1. Diary, October 1898 – December 31, 1902

1. 1. Diary, January 1, 1907 – March 27, 1912

1. 1. Diary, March 28, 1912 – January 8, 1923

1. 1. Account book, ca. 1884-1907

Subject headings:

Agriculture — Nebraska

Homesteading — Nebraska

Pioneers — Nebraska — Saline County

Saline County (Nebraska) — History

Turner, Samuel Fredrick, 1842-1923

KFK        09-18-1996