The topic for Week 8 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge is I Can Identify. My third great-grandfather, Charles Henry Turner, was orphaned at a young age. Where he grew up and who raised him was a mystery until a recently discovered newspaper interview not only confirmed that he was living with the guardians I suspected, but revealed that he spent three years living with them in an unusual place -- an old fort. Was the fort still standing and could I identify it?
Charles Henry Turner was born in Boston on June 18, 1807, the only son and third child of Capt. Stephen Dumaresque Turner and Mary Ivers Prince. His mother died in 1812, when he was five years old, and shortly after his sixth birthday, his father also died, leaving him and his three sisters orphaned. They went to live with their grandmother, Elizabeth (Cutler) Prince, who became their legal guardian. She likely took the children in after the death of their mother as their father was a ship’s captain and away from Boston for months at a time. Their grandmother died a few years later in 1818, once again leaving the young Turner siblings without a guardian.
Thanks to their uncle Andrew H. Prince’s will, I learned where all the Turner girls ended up. Andrew wrote the will in October of 1818, prior to a planned voyage. It’s one of the more interesting wills I’ve read, as it seems he had a terrible relationship with his father-in-law and wrote the will more to spite him and cut him out than anything else. Here is the section pertaining to his Turner nieces:
And it is my will that Helen Turner, my niece, whom I’m about to bring into my family shall be brought up & educated & supported by my wife out of my income in the same manner as my niece Eliza Turner by my sister Colburn & Sophia Turner by my brother Benjamin C Prince are brought up, educated, & supported.
So Helen lived with her Uncle Andrew Prince, Eliza with her aunt and uncle, Sarah Dunn (Prince) and James Smith Colburn, and Sophia with her Uncle Benjamin, but there was no mention of Charles. I suspected that he lived with Elizabeth Prince, his mother’s eldest sister. She married Colonel Samuel Howard and unlike most of her siblings who lived in or around Boston, she resided in Augusta, Maine. I wondered how and why a man like Charles, with such strong familial ties to Boston, would end up in Maine. If he was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in Augusta, he would have a connection to the area and a reason for being there.
As an elderly man, Charles visited several newspapers and gave interviews about his life. At the time, he was the oldest living compositor (printer) in Maine, which will be the subject of a later post. On October 23, 1894, he gave a long, detailed interview about his life to the Daily Kennebec Journal. While many of his other interviews focused on his career, this one offered details about his early life not found in the other articles. This excerpt confirmed my theory that he lived with his Aunt Elizabeth (Prince) and Uncle Samuel Howard.
The Journal received a pleasant call Monday from Mr. Charles Henry Turner of East Mt. Vernon, who was for many years employed as a printer in this city. Mr. Turner is now in his 88th year. He first came to Augusta from Boston 76 years ago, at the age of 11 years. For three years he resided with an uncle, a Mr. Howard, who lived in the old fort, which was then among the most pretentious dwellings in the city. During these years he attended a private school kept by a gentleman named Weston, a brother of the late Judge Weston, the grandfather of Chief Justice Fuller.
Now that I identified who he lived with, I wondered if I could identify where he lived. The mention of the old fort, “among the most pretentious dwellings in the city” sparked my interest. What a unique and exciting place to live!
Fortunately, identifying the fort was much simpler than I thought. A quick Google search of “Augusta, Maine fort” turned up Fort Western, a National Historic Landmark. It’s the oldest wooden French & Indian War era garrison in North America, and the oldest surviving wooden fort in New England. The Howards, the first permanent family in Augusta, lived in the fort from 1767-1852, where they operated it as a trading post and store.
Fort Western was built on the Kennebec River in 1754, during the French & Indian War, at the site of an old Pilgrim trading post originally called Cushnoc. The fort was never actually attacked but used as a trading post. When Fort Western was decommissioned in 1767, it was purchased by James Howard, its last commander. James was Charles’s Uncle Samuel Howard’s grandfather. During the American Revolution, Benedict Arnold’s expedition to Quebec stopped there in 1775 to repair bateaux (small, flat-bottomed boats). The soldiers, among them such notable historical figures as Aaron Burr, Daniel Morgan, and Roger Enos, were enroute to capture the British-occupied city of Quebec in an effort to win French-Canadians to their cause. Arnold, Burr, Morgan, and Enos stayed as guests inside the garrison while their troops slept outside. Their battle marked the first major defeat for the American during the Revolutionary War.
Though losing his parents and then his grandmother at such a young age must have been gut-wrenching for Charles, I imagine moving to a fort was a bright spot of excitement for him. How different life on the river surrounded by the forests of Maine must have been for the young boy compared to the busy, bustling city of Boston. I bet Charles hunted, fished, and explored the wilderness with his cousins, and perhaps they played war games in their fort-home. He probably helped his aunt and uncle in the store when he wasn’t studying or playing.
Today, Fort Western is a living history museum, where costumed guides offer tours and special events to the public. I haven’t visited yet, but I’m looking forward to doing so someday. It will be a treat to roam the same hallways my great-great-great grandfather ran down as a young boy, and catch a glimpse of what his life was like.
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