have a dormitory. 18 In all likelihood, Turpin boarded with the Williams family, courtesy of an introduction from Rev. Travis. Rev. Turpin became a traveling preacher in 1829. 19 The church assigned him to 10 different places in 10 years, six circuits and four missions. These assignments were in all parts of the state, most in the Upcountry but some in the Lowcountry. 20 In circuits, Turpin served an established church. In missions, he served far-flung plantations with widely varied or no church affiliation. As cotton production had expanded, Methodist economic wellbeing improved. From early opposition to slavery, most Methodists now believed a paternalistic system was better. Implementing this system meant greater emphasis on converting slaves and slave owners to Christianity. Methodists who favored the paternalistic system believed converted slaves made good plantation workers. The church’s ideal at that time was Christian masters owning and caring for Christian slaves. 21 Thomas Turpin, the father of two children, a boy and a girl, died 26 July 1838 of CONGESTIVE FEVER in Cown’s Springs, Abbeville District. 22 He was buried in Lowndesville, Abbeville District. 23 The location of his grave marker is not known. After her husband died, Ann and children moved into the Williams’s home, where Martha already lived and where Daniel family members likely gathered from time to time. Martha died the next year, 2 May 1839; Thomas 18 Joyce M. Bowden, Four Connor Generations in South Carolina, 1790-1920 (Amherst, Massachusetts: White Poppy Press, 2014), 51, note V. 19 Albert Deems Betts, History of South Carolina Methodism (Columbia: The Advocate Press, 1952), 236. Also, Summers, ed., Travis Autobiography , 258-59. 20 “Pastor Index Card File,” South Carolina Methodist Conference Archive, Sandor Teszler Library, Wofford College, Spartanburg. During 1829 and 1830, Rev. Turpin rode the Enoree and Keowee circuits. Apparently, the Enoree circuit was large because he shared it with another preacher, just as he shared Black Swamp circuit in 1832, Pee Dee circuit in 1835 and Pendleton circuit in 1837. In 1836, he alone served the Laurens circuit. The missions he served were: 1831, Slaves on Savannah River; 1833, Negroes on May and New Rivers; 1834, Wadmalaw and St. John’s; and 1838, Cambridge and the Flat Woods. 21 A.V. Huff, Jr., “Methodists,” in Walter Edgar, editor, The South Carolina Encyclopedia (Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 2006), 624-25. Also, Lacy K. Ford, Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 143-72 passim. 22 “Paper on the Death of Bro Thos [Thomas] D. Turpin,” Methodist Archive, Spartanburg. 23 “Pastor Index Card File,” Methodist Archive, Spartanburg.
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