Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 1055 - 1056

REV. JAMES S. TURNBULL, Pastor of the United Presbyterian Church, at Viola, came to this county during its pioneer days and has for many years been a faithful worker in the Master's vineyard. He is a native of Greene County, Ohio, and although having seen much of life and being rich in experience, is still comparatively a young man.

            Our subject has reason to be proud of his ancestry, which originated in Scotland several hundred years ago, and the first representative of which in this country was his paternal grandfather, William Turnbull, who crossed the Atlantic when a young man. Being of an inquiring and observant turn of mind, the latter traveled over the country and was engaged in different kinds of labor. He finally located on a farm not far from the city of Nashville, Tenn., where he met and married a Miss Marshall, of a family well known in that section, whence, in 1809, he removed to Ohio.

             The paternal grandfather of our subject was a man of strong convictions, and this removal from a pro-slavery region was occasioned by his bitter opposition to the peculiar institution. He continued a resident of the Buckeye State for over twenty years, and from there emigrated to Warren County, Ill., locating in the town of Monmouth, where he died about 1840, when seventy years of age. Grandmother Turnbull had died in Ohio before the removal of her husband to the Prairie State. They were the parents of ten children, the ninth of whom was named James and became the father of our subject.

             James Turnbull, Sr., was born in 1807, while his parents were residents of Tennessee, and was but two years of age when they removed to Ohio. He was reared to manhood in Greene County, the latter State, and there also was united in marriage to Miss Susanna Bull, who was born in Greene County, and was the daughter of James Bull, a native of Virginia. The latter, upon leaving his native State, settled in Greene County, Ohio, where he spent the remainder of his days, and passed away at the advanced age of ninety-six years. James Bull was imbued with strong temperance principles, and it is said was one of the first men to abolish the use of intoxicating liquors in the harvest field.

             The father of our subject after his marriage gave his close attention to agricultural pursuits, at which he was employed the remainder of his life, He also became ripe in years, dying in 1886 at the age of seventy-nine. The mother had passed away in 1879, seven years before the decease of her husband, when seventy years of age. Their nine children all lived to mature years. Of these, James S., of our sketch, was the sixth in order of birth, and spent his childhood and youth at the old homestead in Greene County, Ohio, where he pursued his early studies. Later he repaired to Philadelphia, Pa., and entered Westminster College, from which he was graduated in 1871. He had already resolved upon laboring in the ministry, and next became a student at the Theological Seminary in Xenia, Ohio, from which he was graduated in 1874.

             Upon leaving college Mr. Turnbull sought the West, crossing the Mississippi into Red Oak, Iowa, where he was stationed one year, preaching to the people of that place, and from there came to this State. After a sojourn of a few months in Anderson County he made his way to Southern Kansas, and was first given charge of the United Presbyterian Church, at Wichita. While there he was formally ordained in 1876. The year following, desiring a relief from the confinement of his study, he pre-empted a quarter of section 34, in Viola Township, upon which he settled and where he has since made his home. He is fond of tilling the soil, delights in watching the changing of the seasons, and believes that with the building up of a healthy physical organization, the mind is also better prepared to cope with the questions which are constantly arising in connection with the duties of his calling.

             Mr. Turnbull had organized the United Presbyterian Society, of Viola Township, before leaving Wichita, and has since been its pastor. It comprises now about sixty members, who hope for better things in the future. Mr. Turnbull, politically, is a stanch Prohibitionist. He disposed of forty acres of his laud to the Santa Fe Railroad Company for town purposes. 

            The deceased wife of our subject, with whom he was united in marriage in October, 1874, was formerly Miss Abbie D. Haskins, who was born near the city of Hartford, Conn., and departed this life in Hartford, in 1882. She was a lady held in high respect for her many estimable qualities. Of this marriage there were no children.

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