Turner, Gilbert C.

Born: 1813-11-03 New Jersey

Died: 1894-04-08 Mount Carmel, Illinois

Flourished: Mount Carmel, Illinois

Born in Burlington County, New Jersey, Gilbert C. Turner, or "Squire Turner," was a store clerk, merchant, teacher and school director, preacher, local official, and member of the Methodist Episcopal Church . He worked as a clerk in a general store in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania before moving to Mount Carmel, Illinois, in 1835. Over the next nearly sixty years, he worked variously as a clerk, merchant, preacher, schoolteacher, school commissioner and superintendent, town treasurer and assessor, town trustee, and justice of the peace. In December 1837, he married Mary Ann Tilton, with whom he had eleven children. Turner's financial circumstances improved over time: in 1850 he owned $1,500 in real property; by 1860 he owned $2,000 in real property and another $15,000 in personal property.

Combined History of Edwards, Lawrence and Wabash Counties, Illinois (Philadelphia: J. L. McDonough, 1883), 126-27; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Mount Carmel, Wabash County, IL, 383; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Mount Carmel, Wabash County, IL, 70; Mount Carmel Register (IL), 12 April 1894, 4:2.