Nelson Seymour Trowbridge and Adeline Martha Mann Turner were cousins whose families moved to Jackson CA in the gold rush. They grew up and had six children each. Two of their kids married each other and became my great grandparents. You can contact me at mlwilson at ucsc dot edu.

Monday, July 21, 2014

Elizabeth Freestone & Robert Turner, ancestors of Jesse Foote Turner

Our Turners trace back to Massachussetts in the 1600's to Elizabeth Freestone (1619-1665), from Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England, and Robert Turner (1611-1651), from South Walsham, Norfolk, England.  Apparently Robert came over as an indentured servant, and then became a shoemaker.  Elizabeth and Robert married in 1647 in Massachusetts.

Elizabeth and Robert lived in Boston, and had three children who lived to adulthood: John, Habbakuk (our ancestor), and Elizabeth.  Robert died at age 40 when the children were 7, 4, and 3, another child Frances who didn't live long was 2, and Elizabeth was pregnant again.  (The child of that pregnancy lived only a few months.)  After Robert's death Elizabeth remarried Lieutenant George Gardner, and the family moved to Salem (I don't know in what order.)

Elizabeth was a nonconformist with respect to the puritan religion of Massachusetts, but unlike our Footes who moved to Connecticut, or Elizabeth's own relatives Ann and William Hutchinson, who moved to Rhode Island, she and Robert stayed in Mass. After Robert's death Elizabeth remarried to a widower George Gardner.  They did eventually move to Connecticut.  (But returned?  Both Elizabeth and George died in Salem.)  They had at least one child, Ruth, who married John Hathorne, one of the judges involved in the Salem witch trials.  Elizabeth died at age 43, when her and Robert's children were 20, 17, and 16.

Both John and Habbakuk became sea captains, and John had built for himself the house upon which The House of Seven Gables was based.

Habakkuk married Mary Gardner (daughter of his mother's 2nd husband???). They had Robert Turner, who married Elizabeth Foote.  These were the g.g.g.parents of Jesse Foote Turner.  Habakkuk was lost at sea in Liberia (must track down the story on that!), but Mary and her son and daughter-in-law Robert & Elizabeth all ended up in Connecticut. A few generations later the Turners moved to New York, from where they began their migration westward.


Source to track down: The Turners of New England and Barbados


From The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne By Margaret B. Moore:

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