JABEZ TURNER

      Jabez Turner is one who through many years has been identified with the industrial interests of Sacramento, now occupying a responsible position in the service of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, as foreman of the wood-working department in the locomotive shops of that company.  His residence in California covers a period of thirty-five years.  He is a native of England, his birth having occurred in Northamptonshire, near the town of Kettring, on the 25th of October, 1828.  His parents were George and Amy (Panter) Turner, who lived  together for fifty-seven years and seven months.  They had fourteen children, twelve of whom reached years of maturity, one sister and one brother passing away in early childhood.  The father was a grazier and dealt extensively in cattle.  The early history of the family is only known through tradition, but it is believed that for many generations the ancestors of our subject were born and lived in Northamptonshire and were representatives of the Puritan sect.

   Mr. Turner of this review, received but limited educational privileges, but throughout his life he had read and studied, and possessing an observing eye and retentive memory he had added largely to his fund of knowledge, becoming a well informed man.  He left the schoolroom when a youth of fourteen to become an apprentice at the trade of carpentering and joining, and when his term was completed he assumed the management of a small manufacturing business for his widowed sister.  Three years later she died and the business was closed out.  Mr. Turner then determined to emigrate to the United States, for he had heard favorable accounts of the opportunities and advantages afforded ambitious young men in the new world. He sailed from Liverpool on the 8th of August 1852, and arrived in New York on the 20th of September.  He made his way to Schenectaday, that state, where he had a brother living, and about the 1st of June, 1853, removed to Syracuse, New York, where he was employed in railroad shops until September 1854.  At that date he became a resident of Hamilton, Canada, and was made the foreman of a railroad shop, a position which he acceptably filled until April 1859, when he went to Grand Rapids, Michagan.  In October of that year he  removed to Torch Lake which is east of Grand Traverse Bay, but the following spring returned to the railroad shops in Syracuse , New York, being thus employed until October 1862, when he removed to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.  On account of his wife's failing health, however, he once more went to New York, in May 1863, there remaining until the 1st of April 1864, when he came to California by way of the isthmus route.

    Through the intervening years Mr. Turner has been actively connected with the industrial interests of this state, and belongs to that class of representative American citizens who, while advancing their individual prosperity, aid in promoting the general welfare.  He was employed in San Francisco until September 1864, when, on the 8th of that month, he sailed for Honolulu, landing on the island on the 25th.  There he had charge of the erection of a sugar mill, built for the owner of one of the first large plantations on the island of Oahu.  On the 2nd of March, 1865, he again sailed for this country, reaching the Golden Gate on the 25th of the month.  On the 1st of April, following, he entered into the employ of the San Francisco and Alameda Railroad Company, and was in that service until the road became a part of the property of the Central Pacific Railroad Company, with which he continued until November 14, 1871.  At that time he was transferred to the shops in Sacramento and given his present position as foreman of the wood-workers in the locomotive department.  For almost thirty-five years he has been connected with this railroad company and its predecessor--a fact which stands in unmistakable evidence of his mechanical and executive ability and his fidelity to duty.

     On the 16th of June, 1852, in the land of his nativity, Mr. Turner was united in marriage to Elizabeth Daniels, who accompanied him on his emigration to the new world.  During their residence in Syracuse a daughter was born to them, on the 2nd of December, 1853, and they became the parents of a son in Hamilton, Canada, on the 6th of June 1856, but the mother and child soon died.  The daughter, now Mrs. Emma Norton, is living in San Francisco.  Mr. Turner was married again August 10, 1857, his second union being with Miss Elizabeth Mann.  The wedding was celebrated in Syracuse,  New York, and in Hamilton, Canada, on the 2nd of October 1858, a son Ralph was born to them.  He has for nine years been a resident of Honolulu.  The mother died in Syracuse in July 1863, and on the 2nd of July 1866, Mr. Turner wedded Miss Nancy Phelps of San Francisco.  In 1813 her paternal grandparents removed from New Hampshire to Ohio, and in the early '50s her parents came to California, where they completed a happy married life of fifty-one years.  Mr. and Mrs. Turner now have four children: Amy born June 6, 1867; Lucy born June 25, 1869; Frederick born March 15, 1872; and Sidney born October 9, 1878.

     Mr. Turner is widely recognized as one of the leading and influential citizens of Sacramento.  He was elected mayor of the city in March 1878, on what was known as the State Workingmen's ticket.  He served for three years and his administration was a progressive one, many reforms and improvements being put in operation under his direction.  He is not strictly partisan and feels that he is not bound by any party ties, yet he is a man of decided convictions of all questions affecting the welfare and permanence of our republican institutions.  He is now serving as a director of the Sacramento Free Library and the Sacramento Building & Loan Association.  He belongs to no secret, political or social societies excepting a whist club.  At all times he is recognized as a public-spirited and progressive man who gives his loyal support to every movement calculated to prove a public benefit.  He was reared in the austere faith of Calvinism, but has long evolved a creed satisfactory to himself of unfettered thought in the matter of religion.  He expresses his belief in the following words: "To my view life with all its concomitants is bounded by earthly existence, and 'all beyond is barred to human ken.' "

 

 

Source: “A Volume Of Memoirs And Genealogy of Representative Citizens Of Northern California” Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. Chicago. 1901. Pages 174-176.

 

 

Submitted by: Betty Tartas.