Oscar Turner (1867–1902)

{{Infobox officeholder

|name = Oscar Turner

|image = Oscar Turner (Kentucky Congressman died 1902).jpg

|alt = 1898 black and white newspaper photo of Oscar Turner, U.S. Congressman from Kentucky

|caption = Kentucky Irish American (Louisville, KY), October 1, 1898

|state = Kentucky

|district = 5th

|term_start = March 4, 1899

|term_end = March 3, 1901

|predecessor = Walter Evans

|successor = Harvey S. Irwin

|birth_date = {{Birth date |1867|10|19}}

|birth_place = Woodville, Kentucky, U.S.

|death_date = {{Death date and age|1902|07|17|1867|10|19}}

|death_place = Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.

|resting_place = Cave Hill Cemetery
Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.

|party = Democratic

|spouse = {{marriage|Mary Jane Caldwell|1901}}

|children = 1

|parents = Caroline (Gardner) Turner
Oscar Turner

|relatives = Winthrop Sargent (great-grandfather)
Edward Turner (grand-uncle)
Ben F. Caldwell (father in law)

|education = University of Louisville (attended)
University of Virginia School of Law (LL.B., 1886)

|profession = {{hlist|Attorney|politician}}

}}

Oscar Turner (October 19, 1867 – July 17, 1902) was an American attorney and politician from Kentucky. A Democrat, he was most notable for his service in the United States House of Representatives from 1899 to 1901.

Biography

Oscar Turner was born at Woodlands, his father's farm near Woodville, Kentucky, on October 19, 1867.{{cite news |date=July 18, 1902 |title=Heart Fails and Death Comes to the Hon. Oscar Turner |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95078839/oscar-turner/ |work=The Courier-Journal |location=Louisville, KY |page=10 |via=Newspapers.com}} He was the son of Caroline (Gardner) Turner and Oscar Turner, who served in Congress from 1879 to 1885.{{cite book |last=Headley |first=Phineas Camp |date=1882 |title=Public Men of To-day |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=absBAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA608 |location=Hartford, CT |publisher=S. S. Scranton & Company |pages=608–609 |via=Google Books}} Turner's great-grandfather was Winthrop Sargent, who served as governor of Mississippi Territory. Edward Turner, who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi, was his grand-uncle.

Turner attended the public schools of Ballard County and Washington, D.C., as well as the Louisville Rugby School in Louisville, Kentucky. He studied law at the University of Louisville, then at the University of Virginia School of Law, from which he graduated in 1886.{{cite book |date=1903 |title=A Biographical Congressional Directory, 1774-1903 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZkFAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA850 |location=Washington, DC |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |page=850 |via=Google Books}}{{cite magazine |editor-last=Stone |editor-first=Ormond |date=February 1900 |title=University of Virginia Men in Congress |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=doZPAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA114 |magazine=The Alumni Bulletin of the University of Virginia |location=Charlottesville, VA |publisher=University of Virginia |pages=113–114 |via=Google Books}} Having graduated at nineteen, Turner did not meet the minimum age required to practice law (twenty-one), so he furthered his education with extensive travel before attaining admission to the bar in 1891 and beginning to practice in Louisville. In addition to practicing law, Turner was active in several business ventures, to include mines in Mexico, a Dallas, Texas, book publishing firm, and real estate including farms and timberland.

A Democrat, in 1898, Turner was elected to the United States House of Representatives. He served in the Fifty-sixth Congress (March 4, 1899, to March 3, 1901). He declined to run for a second term in 1900 and resumed the practice of law in 1901.

In July 1902, Turner became ill while on board a train near Dallas, where he was traveling for business. Turner was hospitalized at St. Paul Sanitarium in Dallas, but refused heart surgery and asked to be taken home. He traveled to Louisville by train but did not recover. Turner died at "Melrose", his home in the Crescent Hill section of Louisville, on July 17, 1902. He was interred at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.

Family

In 1901, Turner married Mary Jane Caldwell, the daughter of Ben F. Caldwell. They were the parents of a son, also named Oscar Turner, who was born on May 3, 1902, and died on June 13, 1975. In 1909, Turner's widow married William Norman Cottrell (1870–1916), a Chicago attorney and judge.{{cite book |last=Batchelder |first=Samuel Francis |date=1918 |title=Secretary's Sixth Annual Report, Harvard College Class of 1803 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UFYZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA74 |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=Crimson Printing Company |pages=74–75 |via=Google Books}}