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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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Hj Men Who Led 181 * jk g a"i j * FT W to the field and the workshop, thus alleviating the curse of toil, was looked upon as little short of irreligious. It is interesting to note that Turner came of a family whose members, men and women, were distinguished by fearlessness and force. His grandfather, Lieutenant Edward Turner, fought at Bunker Hill. When the Americans had to retreat because of the tragic fact of lack of ammunition, it was young Lieutenant Turner who, springing upon an embankment, encouraged the soldiers into maintaining an orderly retreat. Turner's father was Captain Asa Turner who fought in Shay's Rebellion, that brave outburst against the misuse of authority. Turner's mother when an old woman chased a party of Indian braves from the house with a fire shovel. The Turners were a doughty race. Jonathan Turner was born in 1805. His boyhood was spent upon a New England farm. His college education he obtained at Yale where he ranked high in his class, winning prizes in English composition and Greek. In 1835 he married Rhodolphia Kibbe who joined him in his life as a pioneer in the great northwest where he had been for two years, a professor in Illinois College at Jacksonville. Shortly after Turner's arrival in Jacksonville an epidemic of cholera broke out. People fell dead like oxen struck by the butcher's ax. Early and late Turner nursed the sick. Upon one occasion it seemed his patient must die. Turner doubled the prescribed doses of medicine, quadrupled them; then, as death came nearer, he stopped measuring altogether and fairly fed his patient tincture of red pepper, laudanum, and brandy. The disease could not withstand such measures, the patient could and recovered. Turner lost no opportunity of acquainting himself with conditions in the great northwest. In the summer of 1834 he made a seven weeks trip, visiting twelve or fifteen counties of Illinois, his object being to arouse people to the necessity of reorganizing their common schools. Upon this trip he learned all he could of the state of education among the people and he began to realize how little the education offered by the schools and colleges met the needs of their lives.
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