A Brief History of Turner, Maine

Food for thought . . .

Why do you think settlers were reluctant to relocate so?
What difficulties might settlers encounter in the 1760s?
Where were the nearest populated settlements?

When was your town or city incorporated?

Where did your early settlers come from?
Can you see any pattern in the early migration into your community?

What is a Gazetteer?
What did the author think it was important for the reader of 1881 to know about a community like Turner?

Turner's history began in 1765, when the Massachusetts General Court chartered and granted some 63 square miles of land in Maine to "the heirs and assigns of Captain John Sylvester and his company, for services rendered in the invasion of Canada under Sir William Phipps in 1690." As you will see, such grants of land to individuals by governments in gratitude for military service was not uncommon.

The grant was located in what is now Androscoggin County, Maine, some twelve miles north of the modern cities of Auburn and Lewiston. You can see a map of Turner here. In honor of Captain John Sylvester and his exploits the new town was called "Sylvester - Canada," but Sylvester and the other Proprietors - as they were called - had considerable difficulty in convincing settlers and their families to move into their grant.

It was not until after the Revolutionary War, that settlers began to arrive in appreciable numbers to begin clearing the forests and building homes. They discovered that the land on which they had settled contained some of the most fertile soil in Maine! In 1786, the town was incorporated and renamed Turner, in honor of the Reverend Charles Turner - one of the original Proprietors, who had worked diligently to promote settlement of the area.

Nearly all of the early settlers were from eastern Massachusetts, and many came from the towns that had sprung up around the original Plymouth Colony. At least one early Turner family, the Bradfords, were Mayflower descendents and traced their lineage from William Bradford, the second Governor of Plymouth Colony. Other families who came to Turner before 1800 were named Leavitt, Prince, Cary, Chase, Keene and Merrill; and you might watch for these names as we continue our study of Turner in the Nineteenth Century.

Here you'll find a short, but more detailed history of Turner taken from A Gazetteer of the State of Maine by George J. Varney, published in 1881. This volume presents an overview of every community in Maine at that time. You may be able to find a copy in your local library or historical society.