JOHN TURNBULL M.D.

Reference Material: Broadstone Volume #2, History of Greene County, Ohio; 1918

In the memorial annals of Greene county there are few names held in better remembrance than that of the late Dr. John Turnbull, who died at his home in Bellbrook in the summer of 1907 and whose widow is still living there, her place of residence ever since her marriage at the close of the Civil War. Doctor Turnbull served as a surgeon in the Union army during the Civil War and a narrative of his experiences in that connection would make a most interesting book. He was graduated from Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia in the spring of 1861 and had hardly returned to his home in this county when the President’s call for volunteers to put down the armed rebellion against the government came in April of that year. He at once enlisted for service and went to the front as a member of Company A, Seventeenth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, enlisted for three months. He was promoted to the position of hospital steward and after four months of service was mustered out in West Virginia. He then served gratuitously for nearly a year as a volunteer assistant surgeon with the Sixty-fifth Ohio and with the “minute men” of 1862, and then was appointed assistant surgeon of the One Hundred and Fifth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, joining that command at Tullahoma, Tennessee, July 4, 1863. The surgeon of this regiment, Dr. Charles N. Fowler, being constantly on detached service as medical director, Doctor Turnbull was practically surgeon of the One Hundred and Fifth Ohio until the close of the war and during that period of service rendered his professional offices with a skill and a kindliness of manner that endeared him to all members of the command. During the furious charges of the battle of Chickamagua, Surgeon Turnbull vas on duty with his regiment and two men were shot while he was dressing their wounds. After the battle was over he was left to look after the wounded and was captured by the enemy, but two weeks later was released and sent through to the Union lines at Chattanooga. While thus a prisoner the Doctor served friend and foe alike, but his kindly offices in behalf of such of the enemy as stood in need of surgical attention did not prevent a squad of Confederate cavalry from robbing him of his coat, hat, boots, money, case of instruments - in fact, everything he had save his shirt and trousers, the rebels giving him an old pair of shoes in exchange for the good pair they took from him. So completely stripped was he that in afterward describing the act the Doctor quaintly observed that the “rebs” had taken from him “about everything except his hope of salvation, which was so small they did not :find it.” In consequence of the exposure thus entailed Doctor Turnbull was confined for several weeks in a hospital at Chattanooga.

Dr. John Turnbull was a native son of Greene county, a member of one of the oldest families in the county, both his father and his mother having been representatives of pioneer families in this section. He was born on a farm in Cedarville township, March 10, 1840, son of John and Catherine Margaret (Kyle) Turnbull, the latter of whom also was born here, daughter of Samuel and Ruth (Mitchell) Kyle, the former of whom was for many years a member of the bench of associate judges for Greene county. John Turnbull was born in the neighbourhood of the “Hermitage,” Andrew Jackson’s retreat in the vicinity of Nashville, Tennessee, February 17, 1801 and was still in his “teens” when his parents, William Turnbull and wife, carne up here with their family in 1817 and settled on a tract of land on what is now known as the Columbus pike, in Cedarville township, about three miles from the village of Cedarville. 0f the children born to the pioneer William Turnbull and wife six sons, Alexander, Thomas, Gilbert, John, James and David, and two daughters, Betsey, who married Joseph Sterritt, and Isabella who married John Chalmers, grew to maturity and reared families of their own, hence the Turnbull connection hereabout became a numerous one, as well as in the neighbourhood of Monmouth, Illinois, to which latter place William Turnbull and his sons, Alexander, Gilbert and David, moved in 1833, establishing their homes there. John Turnbull grew to manhood on the pioneer farm in Cedarville and on February 21, 1824, was united in marriage to Catherine Margaret Kyle, one of the daughters of Judge Kyle. After his marriage he began farming on his own account on a farm in Cedarville township, erecting there a log cabin for the reception of his bride. In 1842 he supplanted the log house by a good sized two story frame house, which on the night of the day on which it was finished was nearly destroyed by fire communicated from a blaze which had broken out in the adjoining and abandoned log cabin. The damaged house was then restored as a one-story house and in it the family lived until later a brick addition was erected. John Turnbull lived to be near eighty years of age, his death occurring on August 12, 1880; and he was buried in the Cedarville cemetery. He was twice married, his first wife having died in 1852, after which he married Margaret J. Allen, daughter of Hugh and Catherine Allen, and was the father of nineteen children, all of whom grew