TURNER, Jeremiah M.

TURNER, Jeremiah M. (Dubuque, IA, Dec. 24, 1837--Lansing, IA, May 6, 1928) In A Raft Pilot's Log, by Capt. Walter A. Blair (1929), Capt. Turner was described as

               a close manager and a careful, skillful, cautious pilot. He made good average time and 
               delivered his rafts in excellent condition when and where they were wanted... proved 
               his merit by his work and quit the river with a competency, which he did not lose when 
               he went ashore but increased it by successful enterprise since. (1)

Turner personally knew Abraham Lincoln and was in attendance at the Wigwam in Chicago when Lincoln was nominated for president. He enhoyed the company of author Mark Twain who he considered a 'good humorist but a poor pilot.' Turner held a pilot's license good for navigation from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexicco. During the CIVIL WAR, Turner performed valuable assistance to the Union Army by transporting troops. He contributed to geological and scientific publications. (2)

J.M. Turner engaged in towing logs and lumber on the Upper Mississippi, between St. Paul and St. Louis. Written in the 1920s, Memories of a Raft Pilot by Capt. Turner, told of his life on the Mississippi during the later years of lumbering when rafts were towed down the Mississippi by steamboats. His river activities began in 1858 and continued until 1903. He tells of steamboat and raft piloting; about rivermen, steamboat men, lumber agents; and storms and disasters on the great Mississippi. (3)

He established the first pearl button factory in Lansing in May, 1899. He expressed his concern at the time by the arrangement between the Iowa Department of Corrections and a rival firm in Illinois. He found it a threat that the State of Iowa would supply fifty convicts from the prison at Fort Madison to a button manufacturer in Illinois for a term of five years at 55 cents per day. (4) Although rebuffed by Iowa officials, Turner continued his involvement in the factory well into his 80s. The business was led by his grandson, Leo Hufschmidt, who had been raised by Jeremiah and his wife after his mother Julia died. When Mrs.Turner died in 1904 J.M. lived with Leo for the remainder of his life. (5)

In 1924, Capt. Turner proposed the building of a nine-foot waterway from Green Bay to McGregor by way of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers. He believed a it could be made and maintained at minimum cost. (6)

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Source:

1. "Turner, Capt. Jeremiah M.," Online: http://iagenweb.org/boards/allamakee/biographies/index.cgi?read=200708

2. "Funeral for a River Pilot," Telegraph-Herald and Times-Journal, May 8, 1928, p. 7

3. Turner

4. "Fear Convict Button Labor," Dubuque Herald, November 8, 1898, p. 4

5. Turner

6. Ibid.