Turner, Whitman Coke, 1822-1868

Whitman Coke Turner was a businessman in Mississippi during the mid-nineteenth century.

Born in Jasper County, Georgia, around 1822, Turner moved to Alabama as a young man and then settled in Enterprise, Mississippi, in the 1850s. He found success in business pursuits in Enterprise, including co-owning a commercial horse stable. By 1862, his company sold saddles and holsters for state and local cavalry militia units. By 1863, he was commissioned as a salt agent by the Mississippi state government, tasked with acquiring the large quantities of the vital mineral from various sources for private and public use.

Before, during, and after the Civil War, Turner was active in local politics, serving in several conventions and community meetings. In 1865, shortly after the end of the Civil War, Turner accepted a nomination to the Mississippi constitutional convention in a written statement, declaring that he had opposed secession but followed his state through the Civil War, and calling on all Mississippians to accept President Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction policies to quickly reestablish Mississippians statehood in the Union.

Turner died in 1868 at only 46 years of age. He was married to Martha Elizabeth Hundley and had seven children.

(“R. W. Turner,” May 22, 1915, Texas Death Certificates, 1903-1982; The Weekly Democrat, Natchez, MS, November 2, 1868; Natchez Democrat, Natchez, MS, February 5, 1861, and September 24, 1862; The Daily Clarion, Meridian, MS, July 30, 1865; FindaGrave)

Whitman Coke Turner belonged to the following social groups: