1878

1872 Nebraska Map

When the Turpin Family arrived in Nebraska in 1878, there was no Rock County. 

According to family stories James Robert Turpin, the third child of Robert Newton and Mary Ellen (Leonard) Turpin, was born in Iowa in April 1877 and celebrated his first birthday in Nebraska. A history of Rock County From Oxcarts to Orbits: A Brief History of Rock County, Nebraska and Its People, published by Diamond Jubilee Committee in 1962, backs up this story. 

Willowdale Cemetery

In June 2010 I drove up to Rock County, Nebraska to visit the Willowdale Cemetery north of Newport.  This is where Newt Turpin is buried.   His tombstone is marked with a Masonic emblem which I had not noticed years ago when I was there.

 

It's amazing to me that this is my great grandfather.  He was born 190 years ago!  But my grandfather Will Turpin was one of the youngest of his 19 children.  Newt's oldest was Thomas Benton Turpin, born in 1843, who died of measles while serving for the Union in the Civil War.  His youngest was Nelle Turpin, born in 1893, who married Wilson Clark and lived in Stratton, Hitchcock County, Nebraska.  Nelle died in 1966 in Denver, Colorado.