John William Turrentine

5 July 1880 – 11 July 1966⁹

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Herbarium (NCU) has cataloged fourteen vascular plant specimens collected by John William Turrentine. It is likely we will find more as we continue to catalog our collections.  Turrentine used collection numbers on his specimens, with #1 being Lamium amplexicaule dated 23 March, 1901, and #35 being Lonicera sempervirens dated 2 May, 1901.  The few specimens which have locality information were collected in the vicinity of Chapel Hill:  Battle Park, Mount Bolus, and on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  All  specimens are dated from the Spring of 1901, so it is most likely they were collected for a botany class project. Since Turrentine was a professional chemist, it is unlikely that he continued to make herbarium specimens after his undergraduate days.

John William Turrentine was a native of Burlington, in Alamance County, North Carolina. He entered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1897, earned a Ph.B. (Bachelor of Philosophy) degree with honors in 1901, and a M.S. (Master of Science) degree with honors in 1902. ¹

Turrentine is listed as an “Assistant in Chemistry” in the list of faculty at Lafayette College in Easton Pennsylvania for the academic years 1902-03, 1903-04, and 1904-05. He is also listed in the Lafayette College Catalog as a graduate student in chemistry 1903-1905. However, there is no indication that he earned a graduate degree in Chemistry from Lafayette College ². He earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University on June 5, 1908.

In 1926 Turrentine married Katharine Bacon (1884-1950); they had no children.^{8 ,9}

Turrentine was a chemist and authority on the production and use of potash³. He was elected to preside over the American Potash Institute located in Washington, D.C. in 1935, and served in that capacity until 1948. The Institute was and continues to be a “not for profit organization dedicated to advance the appropriate use of potassium and phosphorus fertilizers in crop production systems.” ⁴

From its early days, the Institute’s programs have been rooted in the importance of science-based information. The first president of the organization was Dr. J.W. Turrentine, a well known chemist and world authority on the production and use of potash. His words to the first Board of Directors of the Institute have endured and continue to provide a valuable message: “…potash use depends on the recognition of its function as a plant food, which is agronomic, and the ability of the farmer to buy his requirement, which is economic. In fact, the agricultural usage of potash must be increased only on a basis that is sound and profitable to the farmer.” ⁴

Since 1968, the organization has been known as the Potash & Phosphate Institute and has been located in Georgia.

Turrentine received an honorary doctorate of agriculture from North Carolina State University in 1954.⁵  He donated the land for the Turrentine Middle School (1710 Edgewood Avenue, Burlington, North Carolina), and left much of his $3 million estate to a scholarship trust for “white boys and girls who reside in Alamance County.” In 1972 Judge Barrington J. Parker, Sr. of the United States District Court ordered the word “white” removed from the will. Judge Parker ruled that “[Turrentine’s] dominant and overriding purpose was to aid charity generally and to provide financially deprived students who were or might seek attendance at the University of North Carolina.”⁶

The William Holt and Ella Rea Turrentine Memorial Education Foundation, named for Turrentine’s parents, continues to fund scholarships to students of the University of North Carolina system.

 

PUBLICATIONS
Turrentine, J. W. (1913) Fish-scrap fertilizer industry of the Atlantic Coast. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture.

Turrentine, J. W. (1913) Nitrogenous fertilizers obtainable in the United States. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture.

Turrentine, J. W., William Horrace Ross, R. F. Gardiner et al. (1913) The occurrence of potassium salts in the salines of the United States. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture.

Turrentine, J. W. (1915) The preparation of fertilizer forom municipal waste. IN: Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. pp. 295-310. pl. XIV.

Brandt, Robert and J. W. Turrentine (1923) Potash from kelp: early development and growth of the giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera.Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture.

Turrentine, J. W. (1915) Utilization of the fish waste of the Pacific Coast for the manufacture of fertilizer. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture.

Turrentine, J. W. (1926) Potash: a review, estimate and forecast. New York: Wiley.

Turrentine, J.W., G. A. Cowie, and G.N. Hoffer (1937) Kennzeichen des Kalmangels. Signes de manque de potass. Potash deficiency symptoms. Berlin: Verlagsgesellschaft fur Ackerbau m.b.H.

Turrentine, J. W. (1943) Potash in North America. New York: Reinhold Publishers.

Turrentine, J. W. (1945) The behavior of certain hydrazine salts on decomposition by heat. Journal of the American Chemical Society volume 37.

Turrentine, J. W. (1946) Past consumption and future (1950) requirements of potash salts in American agriculture. Washington, D.C.: American Potash Institute.

Dolbear, S.H., Jules Backman and J. W. Turrentine (1946) The American potash industry. Washington, D. C.: American Potash Institute.

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The following items were found by Lisa Giencke in the North Carolina Collection Clipping File through 1975, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.

Anonymous (1966) Dr. John William Turrentine Dies In Washington. Durham Morning Herald [Durham, North Carolina]. Issue of July 12, 1966.
BURLINGTON – Dr. John William Turrentine of Washington, retired president and chairman of the board of the American Potash Institute and a benefactor of Burlington city schools, died in a Washington nursing home Monday, after a lengthy illness. He was 84.

Dr. Turrentine, owner of a large tract of land on Edgewood Ave. that was a part of the Turrentine plantation in earlier days, gave 20 acres of property to Burlington city schools 10 years ago that was valued at the time at $100,000. He was present six years ago when Turrentine Junior High School officially was presented to the public in a ceremony that also had the unveiling of a portrait of his parents, which today hangs in the lobby.

Dr. Turrentine, a native of Burlington, received degrees at the University of North Carolina and Cornell University. He taught at Cornell, Lafayette College and Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

He was a writer, an executive in the chemical industry and gained a considerable amount of attention worldwide during World War I by his process of extracting potash from kelp so that the short supply of potash available in the country was minimized and the United States was able to furnish the product’s need for military purposes.

Dr. Turrentine’s wife, Mrs. Katherine Bacon Turrentine, died in 1948.

Funeral services will be conducted Wednesday at 2 p.m. at Rich and Thompson Chapel here by Dr. Robert M. Kimball. Burial will be in Pine Hill Cemetery. Surviving are a number of nieces and nephews of the Burlington area.

 

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Anonymous (1966) Alamance man’s value of estate tops $2.8 million. Durham Morning Herald [Durham, North Carolina]. Issue of August 7, 1966.
BURLINGTON – The estate of the late Dr. John William Turrentine of Washington, D. C., the vast percentage of it willed to a scholarship foundation directed primarily to Alamance County students, has been placed a more than $2,800,000.

Dr. Turrentine, a Burlington native and internationally known chemist, founded the American Potash Institute and was its president emeritus at the time of his death in Washington July 11 at the age of 86.

His will, filed for probate in Washington on July 15, left $5,000 to eight direct decendants [sic] of his late parents, including Mrs. Ella Rea Trollinger of Burlington, as well as a trust fund for his housekeeper. The remainder, according to the will, will go to the William Holt and Ella Rea Turrentine Memorial Education Foundation that will provide scholarships to qualified Alamance County student who will attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Raleigh or Greensboro.

In a petition for probate that now has been filed with the Probate Court in Washington by Fred W. Morrison of Washington, named in the will as executor, real estate was valued at $141,683, with personal property valued at $2,695,680, for a total of $2,837,363.

The real estate includes the Turrentine residence and an apartment building in Washington and 71 acres of property on Edgewood Avenue and Edgewood Avenue Ext. in Burlington. The Burlington property also includes one-fourth interest in a store building at 318 S. Main St. in Burlington.

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Anonymous (1972) Race mention is ruled out. The News and Observer [Raleigh, North Carolina]. Issue of July 7, 1972.
WASHINGTON — A U.S. District Court judge has ordered the word “white” stricken from the will of a North Carolina man who bequeathed nearly #3 million worth of scholarship funds to “white boys and girls” residing in Alamance County.

Judge Barrington J. Parker, denying a claim to the money by the man’s relatives, ruled that the will is valid without the racial restriction.

The decision last week, made public Wednesday, came in the case of John W. Turrentine, who died in 1966 and left the bulk of his estate in trust to Wachovia Bank and Trust Co. of North Carolina.

Turrentine, a chemist and a native of Burlington, N.C., founded the American Potash Institute and was its president emeritus when he died in Washington at 86.

Turrentine’s estate was valued at more than $2.8 million. He left a large percentage of it in trust for the William Holt and Ella Rea Turrentine Memorial Education Foundation.

The trust was to be distributed, according to the will, in “scholarships in the form of grants and loans at the Consolidated University of North Carolina… to white boys and girls who reside in Alamance County… whose ambition and desire it is to attend said university but who would not be financially able to do so without such grant or loan.”

Parker denied the relatives’ claim that Turrentine did not have “charitable intent” in making out the will, citing the portions specifying that only needy students should receive the money.

Parker, who is black, said Turrentine’s “dominant and overriding purpose was to aid charity generally and to provide financially deprived students who were or might seek attendance at the University of North Carolina.”

 

SOURCES:

1. Julie Trotter, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Alumni Association, personal communication.
2. Diane Windham Shaw, Special Collections Librarian and College Archivist, Skillman Library, Lafayette College, Easton Pennsylvania, personal communication.
3. Eugene Kamprath, North Carolina State University, personal communication.
4. History of the Potash & Phosphate Institute
5. Pat Webber, Assistant University Archivist, North Carolina State University, personal communication.
6. Anonymous (1972) Race mention is ruled out. News and Observer [Raleigh, North Carolina], issue of Friday, July 7, 1972. [Entire text of this article is below.]
7.  Judicial Portraits U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.  Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit.  http://dcchs.org/Portraits/BarringtonParker.html accessed on 30 June 2016.
8.Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/50345737/john_william-turrentine: accessed August 8, 2024), memorial page for Dr John William Turrentine (1880–1966), Find a Grave Memorial ID 50345737, citing Pine Hill Cemetery, Burlington, Alamance County, North Carolina, USA; Maintained by Jason & Mitzie (contributor 46991246).
9.  Stokes, Durward T. 1996.  Turrentine, John William. IN Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, William S. Powell, ed.  University of North Carolina Press.