Joel Turrill

Joel Turrill (February 22, 1794 – December 28, 1859) was a judge, politician, and diplomat from New York.

Joel Turrill.

Life

Turrill was born February 22, 1794 in Shoreham, Vermont and attended the common school. He later graduated from Middlebury College in 1816. He studied law in Newburgh, New York and later moved to Oswego, New York to practice after being admitted to the bar in 1819. He served as Justice of the Peace, County judge 1828-1833, and member of the State assembly in 1831.

Turrill was elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Congresses in the House of Representatives from March 4, 1833 to March 3, 1837. He was not a candidate for reelection in 1836. He served as district attorney for Oswego County 1838-1840, and surrogate of Oswego County in 1843. He was appointed United States consul to the Kingdom of Hawaii 1845-1850.[1] He died in Oswego, New York, December 28, 1859 and was interred in Riverside Cemetery.[2]

Personal life

Turrill married Mary Sullivan Hubbard on Dec. 21, 1830 in Champion, New York. They had four children: William, Elizabeth Douglas, Mary Hubbard and Frederick. The older daughter, Elizabeth Douglas (Turrill) Van Denburgh, wrote an account of the family's voyage in 1845 and 1846 to the "Sandwich Islands" when her father was appointed U.S. Consul-General to the Kingdom of Hawaii.[3]

References

1. Richard A. Greer (1995). "A. G. Abell's Hawaiian Interlude". Hawaiian Journal of History. 29. Hawaii Historical Society. pp. 57–74. hdl:10524/441.
2. United States Congress. "Joel Turrill (id: T000435)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
3. Van Denburgh, Elizabeth Douglas (1913). My Voyage in the United States Frigate "Congress". New York: Desmond FitzGerald, Inc. Retrieved 29 September 2020.

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress website http://bioguide.congress.gov.