My Genealogy Hound

DR. JAMES TURPIN, a native of Wayne County, Ky., was born July 17, 1828, the eldest and only surviving of four children born to George K. and Jennie (McDonald) Turpin, both natives of Kentucky. The father was a millwright by trade, his death occurring in Wayne County, in 1850, where also the mother died about the year 1838. The subject of this biography was raised in his native State on a farm, and when eighteen years old went to Evansville, Ind., where he read medicine about two years with Dr. Trafton. He then lived in Alabama one year with an uncle, and in 1850 came to Rockport, Ind., and embarked in mercantile pursuits, continuing about ten years. He helped raise the first company from Spencer County in the war, but owing to the quota then being full the company was not immediately sent into active service. Returning from Indianapolis to Rockport he enlisted in Company A, of the Twenty-eighth Regiment, and participated in the battles of Pine Bluff, Helena, Little Rock and other engagements, was honorably discharged in July, 1865, wearing a sergeant’s chevrons. From the close of the war until 1876 he followed contracting and building, also practicing medicine to some extent. In 1878 he entered the Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati, which graduated him in 1880. Since then he has been engaged in medical pursuits. Dr. Turpin is a Republican and a Mason, and himself and wife belong to the Methodist Episcopal church. February 3, 1851, he married Harriet N. Woodward, a native of Ohio, and the following named of the three children born to them are yet living: William K. and Mary Alice.