A New Life

An internet article records that the Turner family ran the Duke of Wellington Beer House in Lenham during the 19th century.  In the 1841 census James senior is recorded as an agricultural labourer and him and his wife Mary are living in Woodside Green, next door to Mary's parents Thomas and Sarah Stedman. James has died by 1851, at which time his widow Mary is a grocer in Lenham.  Ten years later she is recorded as a beer shop keeper. 

James Turner senior married Mary Stedman (my great x 4 aunt) at St Margaret's Church, Witchling, Kent on 28th October 1816.  Mary was the older sister of my great x 3 grandfather George.  She was almost twenty years older than her brother George, and her children would have been closer to his age than she was.  George would have only been a toddler when she married James Turner.

According to Dover Kent Archives (www.dover-kent.com), The Duke of Wellington was built during the late 18th century.  The Turner family of Woodside Green had decided to build a new home and had moved in.  It is almost certain that they ran a grocer's and beer house from their home, which was common practise during these times.  Eventually, an addition was built at the side of their house, and this was to become the local hostelry establishment.  It was very small and customers would bang on the door of the house to be served.

James and Mary (Stedman) Turner were married for more than 30 years, and had several children, but in 1849 James passed away and left Mary a widow.  She continued to run the beer house.  Around about the time James had died, their eldest son, also James, had moved up to London.  Whether he had moved to London to progress his Mormon faith, or whether he found his faith when he got there, I am not certain.  I don't think his parents, James and Mary, could have converted as they are both buried in the local church graveyard at Lenham, and I believe there would have been some hostility towards Mormonism from the local vicar and his congregation.  James (junior) was ordained a priest on 7th January 1852, and an elder later that same year.  He returned to Lenham before 1854 when he emigrated to USA.  It was on his return to Lenham that he grew a congregation of more than 30 members, one of whom was his uncle George (my great x 3 grandfather) who was baptized by James in February 1853.  
 
James Turner, his converted family, friends and neighbours who left the UK for the plains of America would have done so in the hope of a brighter future.  James is considered one of the founding members of the Mormon faith; a faith that is anti-alcohol!  Perhaps their lives in the pub trade influenced this choice.

George's baptism shows that the Stedman family were active within this new faith a long time before they decided to join James Turner and leave for Salt Lake City; perhaps they were gathering funds for the journey, or just waiting for the right opportunity. 

The descendants of both these families see Lenham as their ancestral home.  If George and Mary Stedman had left any sooner, perhaps their son Henry (my great x 2 grandfather) would have left too.  At the time he was married with 7 children; my great grandfather was born after his grandparents and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins had emigrated in 1879; he was 4 days old during the 1881 census.  Henry's decision lead to my existence and whether British or American, Lenham is the ancestral home of these Stedman and Turner descendants.