My Genealogy Hound

JEREMIAH TURK, post-office Joplin; business, farmer and stock-raiser; was born in Chenango county, N. Y., Oct. 28, 1818. His parents were natives of New York. His father, Thomas, was in the Revolutionary War. Our subject was the sixth of seven children. Was educated in the common schools of New York. At the age of twenty-three he left home and worked on the rivers and canals, and traveled all over New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Ohio. Worked some in the pineries, and rafted and anything that he could get to do. In May, 1852, was married to Eliza J. Peck, daughter of Tenant and Derenda Peck, natives of New York and Connecticut. Her grandfather, John Sutton, was in the War of 1812. Mrs. Turk was born in Steuben county, N. Y., near the noted watering-place Watkins’ Glen, and was there reared. Mr. Turk moved and lived in Illinois one season, and then moved and settled in Bremer county, Iowa, and was the first settler of the eastern part of the county. They had to go eighteen miles to a post-office, and forty-five miles to a grist mill, and helped to lay out the county seat. Lived there fourteen years. Has four children, named James T., who was the first child born in the eastern part of Bremer county, was born Jan. 1, 1855; Frank A., Wallace S., and Miranda C. In 1868 our subject moved to Jasper county. Mo., and located on his present farm of 240 acres in 1869. Sixty acres is under cultivation; good orchard and fair buildings, good dwelling-house. Mr. Turk farmed and also carried on a dairy until 1880. He lost thirty-two head of cows and that broke him up in the dairy business. Mr. Turk is an honest, upright man, and stands high in the community.