Holbrook line: John Turner, our own iron man

Usually when I write a blog post, I have a birth date and a death date, even if those dates are approximate, and my job is to fill in the dash between those dates, telling a story about who the person was and what they did.  For today's post, I have only the vaguest of ideas about dates, and I'm not sure whether I'm telling the story of one man, or of two.  I am going to treat this as two men, with the understanding that I am fully open to corrections and additional information. 

The first John Turner seems to have been born perhaps about 1600.  He came to America by 1643, when his name was on an early petition for Lynn, Massachusetts.  He was there in 1654, as an iron worker.  In 1648, he was charged with stabbing his daughter in law, Sarah Turner, and was sentenced to be severely whipped.  It is thought that this was the wife of his son Lawrence.  He is also thought to have had a son John.  There don't seem to be any further known records about John in Lynn.  Speculation is that he had been an iron worker in England, perhaps at Hammersmith, and had come to Massachusetts specifically to work at the first iron works set up in the colony. 

The next time we find John Turner, he is in Taunton, Massachusetts, in 1654.  This John Turner worked as a foreman at the forge in Taunton.  He is believed to be the son of the John Turner at Lynn, but it's possible that this was the same man.  If he was the son, then he followed in his father's trade, and likely moved up in the world, because by 1690 he was listed as the "clerke" at the iron works at Taunton, which was perhaps close to the role of manager, or maybe chief financial officer.  It was a position of respect, anyway.

John at Taunton was a married man, with at least three daughters, Jane, Mary, and Margaret.  It's thought that his wife's name was Jane, but records are lacking.  (Taunton's early records were destroyed by fire). 

The other things we know about John are that he was a surveyor in 1675 (the only town office he is known to have filled, although there were likely others), that he purchased a share or part of a share in the company, that he acquired some of the land purchased from the native Americans in 1672, and that he took an oath of fidelity, probably related to when William and Mary took the thrones in 1688.  He's not found on the list of freemen, which means he likely was not a member of the church.  He may have had a few animals but he wasn't a farmer in the traditional sense of the word.  It would be a great help to review his will, but it seems to have gone missing, whether in the destruction of other town records or for some other reason, I don't know. 

Taunton was only lightly affected by King Philip's war, with minor attacks on only two occasions.  A couple of houses were burned and one man was killed.  The town in general did not evacuate, so it seems likely that John would have served in one of the garrison houses, either as a ember of the militia or as a civilian pressed into duty. 

John was working in 1690 but I've not located any further records of him.  He was outside of the box for our family, not a pastor or a school teacher or a farmer.  The work of the iron works was truly essential to the success of the colony, as the only other source of iron was from England itself, a long and costly way to procure it.  So his work was important to the colony, and his life is important to us. 

The line of descent is

John TUrner-Jane
Jane Turner-Richard Godfrey
Alice Godfrey-Peter Holbrook
Joseph Holbrook-Mary Cook
Jesse Holbrook-Abigail Thayer
Amariah Holbrook-Molly Wright
Nahum Holbrook-Susanna Rockwood
Joseph Holbrook-Mary Eliabeth Whittemore
Fremont Holbrook-Phoebe Brown
Loren Holbrook-Etta Stanard
Gladys Holbrook-Richard Allen
Their descendants