Individual Details

John Turkle Sr

(24 Oct 1789 - 13 Aug 1872)

John Thurkld immigrated in 1818 from North Irland to Boston.
His surname, Thurkld is written on the cover of a family bible.
Currently there are no Turkle family records in Ireland since they were all destroyed in the uprisings of 1914. In the 1990's it was confirmed that this Turkle clan (some of them have had Hebrew names) are descendants of "Black Irish" having Danish roots. See a complementary information via the "Nordic clan" link.1. The story of Coming to America (Taken from The John Turkle Folk book)
2. Further notes

The story of Coming to America

From the family Bibles of the two sons, James and Frank. Each states that John and Mary Farmer were married in Ireland by Rev. Reynolds on 25 January 1818. Landed in New Brunswick Canada in August 1820 and arrived in St. Clairsville, Belmont County Ohio November 1820. Removed to the old homestead 3 February 1825 where he remained until his (John Turkle) death.

Peggy Kelso (John, James, Edgar) in searching at Mormon Church Archives in Salt Lake City found on their roll of film #830,231 list of the passengers arriving from foreign countries at the Port of Alexandria from any foreign Port from the 15th day of April until the 31st day of December 1820. This list in included some of the early families that settled in the Fairview, Ohio area. Listed were Joseph Barrett-38 his wife Ann-38 and a daughter Mary of 4. John Turtle-27 and a son Charles and a daughter Christine and finally Jackson Gracey-27, his wife Ann-24, two sons James-7, Richard-4 (spelling of last name will be discussed later)

In exchanges of letters between two of John Turkles grandchildren, Mattie Turkle Henry (John, James) and Stella Turkle Larrick (John, Francis) additional data are added (these letters are in the possession of Mary B Root) They agreed that they had heard that the trip across the Atlantic took 13 weeks. Margaret Turkle, the second child of John and Mary was born on the high seas 7 May 1820, close to the continent. Mary O. B. Schuler, a decendent of the Barretts reports that Benjamine Barrett, a son of Joseph Barrett, was born on the high seas near New Brunswick. Whether this groupe took a coastwise boat from New Brunswick or the ship discharged and took on passengers and cargo then proceded to Alexandria, Virginia is not known.

John Turkle, Joseph Turkle, and Jackson Gracey all gave their trade as Weavers to the immigration authorities. It should be noted that Jackson Gracys wife was Ann "Nancy" Turkle. Whether she was a sister or a cousin of John or Joseph, or how she was related is not known. This group of Irish settlers bought land close together in the area of Fairview from the Land office in Steubenville at very low prices. They must have ridden their horses from St. Clairsville to their land to build log houses then proceeded to clear the land. There were no Indians in the area, but wild life was abundant and woles were a menace. As the family Bibles show they lived St. Clairsville from November 1820 til 3 February 1825. They were included in the 1820 census as living in St. Clairsville on McMahon Creek. The census was taken in the spring of 1821 in that part of Ohio.

From what part of Ireland did they come? Mary B. Root (John, Frances, Ella, Eula) joined the Ulster Historical Foundation hoping to find out. She was not without clues to this mystery, first, there was an essay widely circulated to the Turkle Clan entitled "The Pilgrimage of the Heart" by the Reverend Alonzo John Turkle (John Francis) dated 5 September 1931. Eula McClenaha Beall copy which is reproduced in Annex A, states that Alonzos grandfather made yearly trips to a notary to certify that he was still alive. This was required by the Irish authorities to enforce a land lease that was made between Mr. Lawless and Joseph and John Turkle for the life of survivor of the latter. With these meager clues Alonzo found the house that John Turkle ha left to come to America. It is located some 6 miles southwest of Newry in the Longfield Valley an area now called Jonesborough in County Armagh, Northern Ireland.

Mary B. Root engaged a researcher from the Foundation in 1982 to give her all the information they could find about the Turkles and the Farmers that were in that part of Ireland at the turn of the last century. Well, it seems that much of the relevant material had been lost in the fire in 1922 during the Irish uprising in Dublin where the records were stored. Nevertheless, they found the Indenture made by Mrs Susannah Barton of County Louth in 1790 for the lives of Charles, the lessee, of Joseph his son and of John Turkill, son of the lessees brother John. The letter from the Foundation goes on to say, "Thus John and Joseph Turkle who emigrated were almost certainly first cousins sons of John and Charles Turkle of Longfield." A copy of the lease is shown in Annex B.

Spelling of the family name, In the Indenture, the signatures were clearly spelled Thurkild. In Ohio they were spelled Turkle. Other variations of the spelling in Ireland were Thurkell, Turtle, Thurkeld, Thurkld. It would appear that the cousins John and Joseph agreed on the spelling Turkle and used it exclusively in the US. In the prayer book mentioned by Alonzo in his "The Pilgrimage of the Heart" now in the possession of his granddaughter, Sue Clinton, there were a number of places wehre the signature John Thurkild was witten. A copy of two page is shown in Annex C. Was the prayer book a gift from his father John and were the signatures those of "our" John of his father? In any case there was a change in the spelling of the name to Turkle when they came to the United States in 1820.

Another question is, how were the Barretts related to the cousins John and Joseph? We know that Jackson Graceys wife was Nancy Turkle Gracey and that there were subsequent marriages between the children of the four immigrating couples. For example, Eula (John-', Francis-2, Ella-3) McClenahan, had always heard that her great uncle George (John) and his wife Catherine Barrett were cousins, but she did not know how.

*Taken from The John Turkle Folk book

Further notes
John Turkle (1789-1872) married Mary Farmer (1797-1853) in Ireland. They immigrated in 1820 through Canada to Ohio.
see a printed book 260 p. Title The John Turkle folk
Stmnt.Resp. by James McClenahan Beall and Mary Beall Root
Authors Beall, James McClenahan, 1917- (Main Author)
Root, Mary Beall, 1923- (Added Author)
Call Number: 929.273 T847b
Location: JSMB US/CAN Book
Language: English
Publication: Baltimore [Maryland] Gateway Press, c1996
Subject Class 929.273 T847

Dale Turkle confirmed:
Who was this couple, where did they come from, and how do we know? That they were Irish there was no doubt. We know this from the family Bibles of two of the sons, James and Frank. Each states that John and Mary Farmer were married in Ireland by Rev. Reynolds on 25 January 1818. "Landed in New Brunswick, Canada in August 1820 and arrived in St. Clairsville, Belmont County, Ohio November 1820. Removed to the old homestead 3 February 1825. Where he remained until his death."

For further information see private communications with Dale Turkle

Events

Alt name		John Turkle
Birth	24 Oct 1789	Longfield, Forkill, Armagh, North Ireland
Occupation	1810 - 1872	Weaver (see note)
Marriage	25 Jan 1818	Armagh County, Northern Ireland - Mary Farmer
Immigration	Bef 1820	from North Ireland to Canda
Immigration	1820	from Canda, Alexandria, Virginia, United States
Arrival	1820	Alexandria, Virginia, United States
Property	5 Apr 1822	Ohio Land Records
Residence	1850	Age: 60 - Oxford, Butler, Ohio, United States
Residence	1860	Age: 70; Occupation: Farmer; PersonalEstateValue: 700; RealEstateValue: 4000 - Oxford, Middlebourn, Guernsey, Ohio, United States
Residence	1870	Age: 81; FatherForeignBirth: Yes; MaleCitizenOverTwentyone: Yes; MotherForeignBirth: Yes; Occupation: Infirm - Oxford, Butler, Ohio, United States
Death	13 Aug 1872	Fairview, Guernsey, Ohio, United States
Burial	14 Aug 1872	Pisgah Cemetery, Antrim, Guernsey, Ohio, United States

Families

Spouse	Mary Farmer (1790 - 1853)
Child	George Turkle (1818 - 1900)
Child	Margaret Turkle (1820 - 1830)
Child	Nancy Ann "Anne" Turkle (1822 - 1906)
Child	James C Turkle (1823 - 1893)
Child	Mary Turkle (1824 - )
Child	Francis Turkle (1826 - 1888)
Child	John Turkle (1827 - 1840)
Child	Catherine Turkle (1829 - 1917)
Child	Joseph Turkle (1830 - 1918)
Child	Charlie Turkle (1832 - )
Child	John W Turkle Jr2 (1834 - )
Child	William Turkle (1835 - )
Child	Jane Turkle (1836 - )
Child	Elizabeth Turkle (1838 - 1840)

Father	Charles John Turkle (1760 - 1840)
Mother	Catherine Bostings (1762 - 1790)
Sibling	Joseph Turkle (1782 - 1855)
Sibling	Mary Turkle (1783 - 1855)
Sibling	Nancy Turkle (1788 - 1869)
Sibling	Catherine Turkle (1791 - 1835)

Notes

Occupation

Weaving in Ireland was a cottage industry in the late seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds.
The whole family participated. Those who brought the trade to America at the beginning of the industrial Revolution were at the cutting edge of technology of the times.

The Jacquad Loom was the marvel of the age. Developed by a Frenchman, Joseph-Marie Jacquard of Lyon, the loom was shown in Paris in 1801. By 1906 the loom was in wide use and most of the bugs had been worked out. The big advantage was that, whereas previously the designs of fancy tapestries required both a draw boy and a weaver to make the patterns, the draw boy was replaced by punch cards and a mechanism to manipulate the various color threads that made the pattern.

The examples of the weaving of John Turkle clearly show that he used this technology and it is presumed that he had learned it in Ireland. In fact, the same technology was modified and used by Holorith to prepare the 1890 census, and was subsequently used by IBM in their early computers. Stella Turkle Larrick (John, Frances) reports that she saw the loom under the carriage house on the family farm near Fairview. The shuttle John used is in the possession of Dr. Samuel T. Beall, Vancouver, WA.

Oral tradition suggests that John gave a blanket and a coverlet (bead spread) that he had woven to each of his children as a wedding gift. Of the nine children who married we know of eight coverlets that still exist. Where each is, is listed in Annex D, Heirlooms in the John Turkle Folk book. One had been donated by Mary Larrick Richardson (John, Frances, Stella) to the Guernsey Historical Society in Cambridge, Ohio.

This coverlet has a seam in the middle. The width of the loom in part was determined by the length of the arm of the weaver. The skill of the weaver was shown by how well the patterns matched as the seam was sewen together. Most blankets had a fringe on three sides, and this one is no exception. The colors were white and blue. The material was wool. It was woven on a Jacquard Loom. John and his family also wove a mixture of wool and linen callled Linsey-woolsey in the frontier days.

An excellent description of pioneer weaving is given in a book Keep Me Warm One Night by Harold B. Burnham and Dorthy K Burnham. Published by the University of Toronto Press, 1972. They emphasize that weaving was what is now called a vertical industry. The wool and flax were grown on the farm. it was carded and spun into thread then the linen was woven into sheets, pillow slips, mattress covers, suit and dress material of linsey-woolsey, and mixture of linen and wool. Blankets and bed covers were made of wool. The mens work was in the field and weaving; the womans in spinning. in fact the word spinster grew out of the work of women who never married and instead spent a good bit of their productive life spinning.