Confusion Runs in the Family

Robert Turner was born in 1735 in Leicestershire, England. Maybe. The confusion is over where. It's a pretty common name. His parents' names are in dispute. Maybe there were two Robert Turners born on the same date or maybe there was only one.

At some point he came to North Carolina. There he met and married Mary Thornburg whose family name is spelled many ways over the years and is the subject of what seems to be a never-ending discussion on whether to make the spelling consistent or use the spelling in use at the time and location. (I vote for accuracy over consistency but agree the multiple spellings do make things difficult.)

Mary was a Quaker whose family came from Ulster, Northern Ireland, to North Carolina via Pennsylvania by 1730. Robert was not a Quaker so she was immediately "Dismissed" by the New Garden Monthly Meeting, Hopewell, Guilford, now Randolph County, North Carolina, for marrying "Out of Unity." Less than a year later it was changed to "Condemned."

Mary and Robert had ten children according to research by the late Dr. John Vallentine and others who used various records. (Some descendants of Mary and Robert became Pioneer Mormons. Much research has been done on the family.)

Robert may have fought in various colonial battles. There is a Captain Robert Turner in the records who seems to have the same credentials, like birth date, but not the same parents. And they both married the same woman...on the same date. It is unclear what happened to that Captain Robert Turner. DNA results seem to indicate a connection with this Captain Robert Turner's mother and descendants of Robert and Mary Turner.

It seems likely the real Robert Turner is a combination of the above. Confusion...and some creative  thinking perhaps.

Then came the American Revolution. 

Robert may have fought in colonial battles, but when it came to the English, he was a Loyalist. He was a Captain of a Randolph County, North Carolina, Company in the Loyalist Militia. (a Captain...sound familiar?). He was captured after the Battle of Moore's Bridge, north of Wilmington, on February 27, 1776. He was a prisoner at Halifax, North Carolina, on April 5, 1776. He was transferred to Maryland where he broke out of jail in September 1776 and escaped to parts unknown. Depending on the source, he was recaptured and died in prison or died while a fugitive. There is no indication he ever returned home.

In November 1777 the North Carolina General Assembly confiscated his property and, in 1779, he was listed among those who had committed treason against the state. This is well documented in North Carolina records.

As a result, Mary moved west to the area of Bristol, Tennessee, with her ten young children and, later, to Greene County, Ohio, where she died.

Some researchers are unhappy with a Loyalist ancestor. They say, without sources, that Robert Turner wasn't a Loyalist, that he did not die but also moved west -- to Jefferson County, Tennessee. (Bristol is in Sullivan County.) He died about 1795. That would mean the North Carolina General Assembly was confused.