Turnerw
Transcribed from "History of North Washington, an illustrated history
of Stevens, Ferry, Okanogan and Chelan counties", published by Western
Historical Publishing Co., 1904.
WILLIAM TURNER is one of the
most successful fruit growers in the productive valley near Wenatchee.
His property lies one mile and three-quarters from the town, and the view
from his residence presents a magnificent panorama of Central Washington
scenery.
William Turner was born in Ontario, Canada,
March 17, 1862. He is the son of James and Jeanette (Henderson) Turner,
both natives of Scotland who came to this country when quite young, the
latter being but four years of age. At present she lives with a daughter
in Missouri, Mary A. Benson. When our subject was four years of age
his parents removed to the states, settling in Missouri, where he grew
to manhood. He attended district school at such times as he could
spare from active labor on a farm, and acquired a practical education,
the family comprised three boys and four girls. At the age of twenty-two
years our subject went to South Dakota where he remained but one year,
going to the Palouse country, Washington, and locating near Pullman, where
he purchased land. The following six years he devoted his attention
to agricultural pursuits, and after four years more passed on the sound,
engaged in various pursuits, he came to Wenatchee. This was in 1894.
He has at present eighty acres of land, thoroughly irrigated, forty acres
of which is set out to orchard. He has six acres of strawberries,
with fruit trees between the rows. This is the largest strawberry
garden in the valley. He has sold as many as six hundred crates of
berries in one season, and anticipates increasing this yield materially
each year. Two acres of his land are devoted to blackberries.
At the period of his initial location near Wenatchee he rented land of
Philip Miller, and from this he raised two hundred crates of berries to
the acre.
On November 26, 1886, at Colfax, Washington,
Mr. Turner was joined in marriage to Miss Paulina Algier, a native of Germany.
Her father, Antony, died in Germany in 1891. Her mother, Barbara
(Gehring) Algier, still lives in that country. She has three brothers,
August and Sevrin, farmers, in Germany, and Xavier, a commission merchant
in Chicago. She has two sisters, Mary, wife of William Johnson, at
Wenatchee, and Christina, married to Franz Klausman, and residing in Germany.
William Turner, our subject has one brother,
Robert, a prosperous farmer in Whitman county, Washington, and two sisters,
Mary and Jessie, the former the widow of E. A Benson, living at Excelsior
Springs, Missouri, and Jessie, wife of Silas McCrary, a farmer of Davis
county, Missouri.
Mr. and Mrs. Turner are the parents of three
children, Violet, William H. and Richard, aged fourteen, eleven and five
years, respectively.
The fraternal affiliations of Mr. Turner are
with the Knights of Pythias, M. W. A. and the Brotherhood of American Yeomen.
Mrs. Turner is a member of the Rathbone Sisters and the Yeomen. Although
not an active partisan in politics Mr. Turner is in line with the principles
of the Republican party. The homestead residence is built of a splendid
quality of shell rock, a ledge of which rises opposite the house over three
hundred feet in height. At an early day Mr. Turner intends to erect
a three-story fruit packing house of the same material.