Person:John Turnbull (14)

Bayou Sara, West Feliciana, Louisiana, United States

1.   Charles Leufroy Powell, John Turnbull, in Website: www.geni.com
   8 Nov 2014.
2.   Patrick Hogue (Samples). Everett Family and the Choctaw Trading Post, the (Factory).
   
3.   Groves, Joseph A. The Alstons and Allstons of North and South Carolina compiled from English, colonial and family records. (Atlanta, Ga.: Franklin Printing and Publishing Co., 1901)
   Page 207, 208.

   From the family Bible of Jonathan Rucker, and from family reminiscences, we have the following:
   The family of Rucker were Huguenots and left France in the 17th century, and settled near Fairfax, Virginia. Sometime previous to the Revolution they came southward, some even as far as Mississippi. The vessel which brought them to America was wrecked and everyone on board lost, except Rucker himself and one Companion. Among his descendants, about the beginning of the Revolution, Peter and his wife Sarah Rucker came to the Mississippi country from Prince Edward County, Virginia and settled upon the river in Louisiana below Natchez. Among their children were Jonathan, Catherine, Susanna, and William.
   Here his wife Sarah died, and Peter married again. His 2nd wife was disliked by the children, and little Catherine, refusing to nurse her sep-mother’s infant, took her brother William with her and went off, crossing the river in a skiff, and wrapping up her little brother in a flannel skirt to make him comfortable, they concealed themselves on the opposite bank of the river, where they could see their father with neighbors, dogs and torches hunting for them all night. The children, when day came, went to some of the neighbor’s houses. Mrs. Philip Alston took pity upon the children, having been a friend of their mother, and offered to take little Catherine into her family and send her to school with her own children. This the child enjoyed very much, and became strongly attached to Mrs. Alston and family. In 1781, when the English colonists of the Natchez District fled from the Spaniards, she took Catherine with her to the Indian nation, where they went for protection. There they met John Turnbull, the Indian agent, whom Catherine married (she being then 16 years old), and afterwards lived in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana at a place called Arlington until some years subsequent to her husband’s death. John Turnbull had previously married among the Indians, where he left a number of children.
   John Turnbull came to Mobile from Scotland with his father, mother, brother, and sister. All of whom, except himself and brother, died of yellow fever the first summer after arrival.
   William, the youngest, a child of 11 or 12 years, was put with the greater part of their property in the store of an English merchant. He moved with the merchant’s family to the Bahamas, where he died, leaving a wife and two small children.
   John Turnbull bought a mule and a peddler’s pack and started out to trade with the Indians. In the course of time he made agent under Spanish rule and became very wealthy, owning quantities of land in Mobile, Alabama, on (ie. the east and west sides of) the Tombigbee River, and in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana.

4.   Lowrie, Walter (editor). American State Papers Public Lands: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, in relation to The Public Lands, From The First Session of the First Congress To the First Session of the Twenty-Third Congress. (Washington, District of Columbia, United States: Duff Green (Printer))
   Vol. 1, Pages 586, 623, 633, 634, 635, 666, 668, 692, 695, 747, 750, 751, 764, 777., March 4th, 1789, To February 27th, 1809.
5.   Both Native South and Deep South: The Native Transformation of the Gulf South Borderlands, 1770-1835, in Wainwright, James Eyre (Thesis), Rice University, History Department. (Houston, Texas)
   May 2013.

   When peltry trader and planter John Turnbull died at the end of the eighteenth century the Spanish authorities took an inventory of his estate. In addition to landholdings in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Bayou Sara, Louisiana, St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana Plains, Big Black, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Natchez, Louisiana / Natchez, Mississippi... the inventory (written in French) listed 100 slaves. Most were recorded as local, “Creole”-born slaves (forty-eight).

6.   Patrick Hogue (Samples). The Samples / Semples Family.

   David White's will was recorded in the old Spanish records of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In the first sentence of the will, he states that he is the legitimate son of Joseph White and Margaret Leeth. After his death, an attempt was made to break this will and in the records of the trial, there is a sworn deposition of John White of Anson County, North Carolina who identifies himself as a brother of David. During the lifetime of Unity, David White, along with his son-in-law John Perry, were involved in the Indian Trade along the Tombigbee River, Yazoo lands, in what would later become the state of Alabama. David White would later take up residence and land in New Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, a part of Spanish West Florida at that time. On August 16, 1794, he prepared his will, specifying that his entire estate be given to Sybil Turnbull, daughter of his good friend John Turnbull, now deceased. The will was sealed and given to the Spanish authorities at the "Fort and District of Baton Rouge" on August 21, 1794 for safekeeping until his death. He stated that he was "an Englishman and a native of North America," then he and the witnesses he had brought along signed "the closed folder." All of his family thought he was dead except his brother John, who took up his trail and found him in Louisiana. Later, his sons Joseph and William visited their father. David sent an invitation to Sarah through the sons to bring the family, but Sarah did not respond, and David did not change his will. The will was probated in 1809, and Sybil inherited. David's wife Sarah sued, and the court ruled against her. She tried again, and was again unsuccessful.
   
   See also: Elizabeth Isabella (Turnbull) Semple, Moses Samples, Eliza Perry.

7.   Strickland, Ben; Patricia N Edwards; and Jean Strickland. Records of the Choctaw trading post : St. Stephens, Mississippi Territory. (Moss Point).