We are aware of several documents and artifacts that were passed down to Theodore Turley’s descendants, but their current whereabouts are unknown. If you have any information on where these items may have ended up, please let us know! We’d love digital pics to share with the family.

1. Theodore Turley’s 1814 indenture record

Theodore Turley’s grandson, Joseph Soll Turley, wrote “I saw with my own eyes when I visited Colton in 1911 [Theodore’s] Indenture made out and sworn to by his father William Turley when he was fourteen… to serve his master, ‘[James] Parks,1 Stamper, Piercer, and Toolmaker’ for seven [years] to learn his trade. The first five [years] for bed and board, the last two [years] if he wished to move elsewhere, he was to receive the munificent sum of five shillings (a dollar and twenty cents) a week for board and lodging.”2

Last known whereabouts: Joseph Soll Turley stated that the indenture passed from Sarah Elizabeth Turley Franklin to her half-sister Frances Kimberley Turley McIntosh. The indenture was then passed to Frances’ daughter, Maude M. Parsons who married Fred Arthur Button. The Button family lived in Riverside, California. Joseph Soll said that Fred wanted to keep the indenture for his two sons who were at that point around ten and twelve years of age. These two sons would’ve been Charles T. Button (b. 1902) and Arthur P. Button (1908-1970).

2. Theodore Turley’s dies

Joseph Soll Turley stated that a maternal cousin in Beaver, Charles Woodhouse, Jr., possessed the dies that Theodore Turley had created of the numerals 1-9 and 0. Joseph Soll was able to see these dies in 1937 and used them to stamp numbers into a 1/4-inch piece of leather. He attempted to purchase them at that time, but the offer was declined.3

Last known whereabouts: In the early 1970s, Joseph Soll Turley wrote to his cousin’s family in Beaver to see if he could purchase the dies. One of the sons wrote back and “told me he doesn’t know what became of them.”

3. Theodore Turley’s gun with an octagonal barrel

In her biography of Theodore Turley, later published in The Theodore Turley Family book, Ella Mae Judd said, “Theodore Turley invented an octagon barrelled gun. On one trip he and his companions saw a herd of antelope. He said, ‘Watch me get the head antelope.’ One woman said, ‘You might as well point your gun in another direction, because you’ll never get it.’ He did–at 1000 yards with one shot, if this account can be believed.”

Last known whereabouts: The gun was apparently stolen in Mexico by an “Austrian painter.”4

4. Early 1800s tea chest

In 1914, a Pioneer Day celebration was held at the home of the Brown family in Colton, San Bernardino County, California. Mrs. Brown was Mary Ann Franklin Brown, a granddaughter of Theodore Turley. Her parents, Stephen Franklin and Sarah Elizabeth Turley, had purchased the Brown’s home in Colton in 1877, and it had remained with the family ever since. Several antiques were on display at the celebration. A “valuable heirloom possessed by Mrs. Brown on exhibition was the tea chest which was brought over from England by her ancestors in 1825 and which had been in the family possession many years, so that just how really old it is, is not known. On either side are little compartments for the tea while in the center is a space in which now rests an exquisite cut glass tumbler-shaped bowl, which when struck rings and echoes like a bell.”5

Example of early 1800s English tea chest with cut glass bowl in center.

Last known whereabouts: Mary Ann Franklin Brown (1861-1921) did not have any children of her own, so the chest likely passed to other family members in the San Bernardino area.

5. 1840s earthenware vase

At the same Pioneer Day celebration, a separate artifact that Mary Ann Franklin Brown displayed was “a little brown earthenware vase, which still has a wonderful glaze, filled with old-fashioned marigolds.” This vase had apparently been owned by Theodore Turley and “was made in Utah sometime in the [1840]s.”6

Last known whereabouts: Mary Ann Franklin Brown (1861-1921) did not have any children of her own, so the earthenware vase likely passed to other family members in the San Bernardino area.

  1. Joseph Soll Turley stated that the name of the master was Samuel Parks, but Theodore Turley wrote in his journal in 1840 that he visited his “old master” James Parkes while on his mission in England.
  2. 1971 Letter from Joseph Soll Turley to Descendants of Theodore Turley.
  3. 1971 Letter from Joseph Soll Turley to Theodore Turley’s descendants.
  4. Ella Mae Judd cited an August 1951 interview with Ernest Turley in Mesa, Arizona, by Hortense M. and Helen Fuller.
  5. Much appreciation to David R. Turley for finding this article and bringing it to our attention. “Pioneer Day at Colton Carnival,” Colton Daily Courier, Friday, 23 Oct. 1914, p. 1, cols. 1-2, Newspapers.com.
  6. Much appreciation to David R. Turley for finding this article and bringing it to our attention. “Pioneer Day at Colton Carnival,” Colton Daily Courier, Friday, 23 Oct. 1914, p. 1, cols. 1-2, Newspapers.com.