PATRIOT Obediah Turpin

Notes:

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/INOWEN/2000-07/0963923207

Revoluationary War soldiers from Owen County, Indiana
Randi Richardson

COUNTY'S REVOLUTIONARY WAR RECORDS BRING
REALITY TO THE FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION

(Editor's note: This is the seventh installment in a series of articles
initiated by the Evening World on Independence Day in 1994. The series
features the military history of Revolutionary War veterans who were also
pioneers in Owen County.)

Independence Day is a time set aside to honor the brave men who fought for
and won our country's freedom in the Revolutionary War more than a century
ago. A number of those men eventually made their way to Owen County,
Indiana, where some lived out their life, and others lingered only a while.
Obediah Turpin fell into the latter group.

Obediah was born in Virginia in 1761 to Henry and Ann (Williamson) Turpin
in the midst of a lengthy war between the colonists and British against the
French and Indians. By the time the war ended, the British were left with
a staggering debt.

To recoup their losses, the British began taxing the colonists on
newspapers, pamphlets and almanacs. When the tax was repealed the
following year, it was replaced with a new tax on glass, paint, paper and
tea. With each effort the British made to control the colonists, the
colonists moved in the opposite direction.

Patrick Henry, a young Virginian lawyer and charismatic leader, became the
voice of the people who wanted independence. He is well remembered for his
words, "Give me liberty or give me death!" Henry met with other Virginians
who reflected his views, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Great Britain turned a deaf ear to the colonists, leading Jefferson to
write a Declaration of Independence in July 1776 at the direction of the
Continental Congress. With the last stroke of his pen, the colonists were
at war, none more enthusiastic than the Virginians. Obediah, only 15 that
year, was too young to contribute to the war effort but not too young to
absorb the attitudes of independence expressed by his fellow Virginians.

In early 1779, when Obediah turned 18, he enlisted for 18 months in Captain
Richard Worsham's company under Colonel Merreweathers. He was assigned to
drive a forage and baggage wagon.

His company was marched to Petersburg and remained there throughout the
fall. Then on to Charleston, South Carolina, until shortly before the city
surrendered, and finally to Guilford County, North Carolina. It was there
that Obediah's term expired in the fall of 1780.

The fight for independence was neither quick nor easy. It continued to
rage in 1781, and Obediah re-enlisted for three months serving as a
substitute for John Williamson who was, perhaps, a maternal uncle or
cousin. During this engagement he was stationed at Portsmouth for two
months and the remainder of his time at Petersburg.

By early spring of that year, Virginia had become crucial to the military
operations of the war. If it fell to the British, the North would be cut
off from the South leaving the north vulnerable to British control.
Consequently, General George Washington was given authority to use whatever
force, at whatever cost, to make certain Virginia did not fall.

Under these circumstances, Obediah, the young, battle-worn soldier, was
called upon yet again to serve his country. In the early fall of 1781, he
was drafted for three months and served as a servant to Jesse Walton in
Yorktown. Walton supplied arms and ammunition to the army.

By early October, the situation looked very bad for the British. And as it
deteriorated, the decision was made to surrender the soldiers rather than
suffer defeat. Terms were negotiated. On the seventeenth, the fighting
was over.

After the war ended, Obediah moved to Rutherford County, North Carolina,
where he took a bride. But he wasn't there long. Sometime before 1810, he
joined many others in the long trek to Kentucky and settled in Knox County.

A few years later, he moved north again and settled with his family in the
wilderness of Owen County, Indiana. He paid tax there in 1819. In 1820
both he and his son, Thomas, were taxed in Owen. Obediah was by then 59
years old; it is believed that Thomas had just turned 21.

In 1829, Thomas began buying property in Owen County. He sold it all in
1832, the same year he began buying land in Hendricks County, Indiana.
Obediah apparently cast his lot with Thomas as their lives followed similar
paths. Obediah, at the age of 70, voted in Hendricks County in an election
on April 4, 1831.

Two years later, in 1833, both Obediah and Thomas were residing in Boone
County. Thomas served on the Boone County jury that year, and Obediah gave
Boone County as his address when he applied for his pension in Marion
County. The trip to Marion County was made necessary because no one in
Boone County knew how to fill out the needed paperwork.

The application was approved the following year. Obediah was granted an
annual pension of $20.00.

Thomas disappeared from Indiana by 1840. Obediah, on the other hand, was
back in Owen County living alone. The census taker noted his age as 81,
just a few years older than his actual age of 79.

Even at this advanced age, Obediah apparently moved one more time. When he
died 1844, he was buried in the Danville East Cemetery, in Boone County,
not Owen. Thus ended the life of a good soldier who had traveled much, and
served his country well.