The University of North Carolina has catalogued,
to date, nine specimens collected by J. W. Turrentine. All of
these specimens were collected in Chapel Hill during the Spring
of 1901, and most likely 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.
Turrentine was a chemist and authority on the production and use
of potash (3). 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. 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 continues to fund scholarships to students of the University
of North Carolina system.
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.]
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 wast 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.
=======================================================================
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.
=====================================================================
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.
==========================================================================
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."
