VAHANOVE-L Archives

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Subject: Re: Nathaniel Turner and Additional Family Members
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 17:25:35 EST

Many years ago, in 1978 precisely, when I first commenced doing research in
and about Hanover County, I contacted Mr. Frank Dunham who was the oldest
living member of Black Creek Baptist Church at the time and acknowledged historian
of the church. He said there were few written records. It seems one of my
Peace kin was in possession of most of the old church records and his house
burned; among the losses were those records. Mr. Dunham told me that Baptists did
not keep registers of births, baptisms, deaths and/or marriages. However,
the history of the church itself was lost. From the land tax records I have
studied of Hanover, one George Turner donated the land in the last quarter of the
18th century for the first church which was located across the road [Rte.
628] from the present church. During the first years of the 19th century my
third great grandfather, Walter Turner, donated an acre to the church [again, land
tax records], so apparently the early cemetery is also across the highway
from the present one. In 1977, a Bicentennial Edition of BLACK CREEK BAPTIST
CHURCH was published. I bought a copy, and it is possible the church still has
copy(ies) of the publication. There are old photographs of many members and a
reconstructed history of the church that was known in 1977. Perhaps more has
been learned since that date.

For those interested in the Turner graveyard [off 606, thanks to Pat], I
think there are some corrections that may be in order. Waddy Turner's death date
is listed as 21 May 1800, which is correct. However, his age is not listed
correctly. He was 40, not 10, born c 1760. I imagine the condition of the
stone is responsible for the error. I am quoting from Bible pages at the LVA from
the Anthony Turner [son of Nathaniel and Mary Waddy Turner and brother of
Waddy Turner] Bible, 1802-1912, Archive Div. #20577. For those who are
interested in additional data for this Turner family, please contact me directly, and I
shall send what I copied in 1978 and have learned since that time. I erred
when I wrote in an earlier Digest that Mary, wife of Nathaniel, was also buried
in the Turner Cemetery. There is no such data I have seen that supports this
statement. I was writing off the top of my memory which was faulty. I got
the vital stats [correct] from her newspaper obituary, but the place of burial
is not given. "Mary Turner, mother of eight children & consort formerly of
the deceased Nathaniel Turner of Hanover County, died a Christian perfectly
believing in the merits of a redeemer on the 9th of September at 11 o'clock in the
night in the year 1818, aged 80." She was living in Richmond as were her
grown children who survived, except for an older son, John, who lived in
Washington, D.C. and my ancestor, Walter, who remained in Hanover. Her son, Anthony,
built the oldest standing house in Church Hill, The St. John's Church Historic
District, located at 2520 East Franklin St, built between 1803-1810. Capt.
Anthony Turner died 4 April 1819, aged 40. His wife, Lucy Williams Turner died
firty years later in New Kent County, 20 April 1869. They had one little son
whose tombstone is in the Turner Family Cemetery that is listed in the book
by Mrs. Yates. He was Anthony Meredith Turner

Pat, if and when I come to Hanover again, I hope you will kindly allow me
permission to visit the graves of this Turner family that is mine. I do not know
if my ancestor, Walter, is buried there or not. He was born c 1763 and died
in 1829. His daughter, Martha, married Charles Peace, and I descend from them.

Janelle Via McKown

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