Sometime after 1887, William E. Turner and son Charles H. Turner established W. E. Turner & Son in Statesville, N. C., to deal in agricultural equipment. Both father and son were experienced mechanics, who between them knew blacksmithing, machining, and agricultural equipment repair and rebuilding, and with experience in the repair and rebuilding of steam and gas engines. The W. E. Turner & Son business survived for about thirty years, specializing in the rebuilding and reselling of engines and machinery.

In 1898 the younger Turner took a hiatus from the business to volunteer for service in the Spanish-American War, and after his honorable discharge he took a job with the Frick Co., where he remained until about 1918, while also overseeing the family's equipment dealership. It seems that Charles was very successful in his work and accumulated a substantial amount of money.

After leaving the Frick company Charles established a pair of businesses, a machine shop doing business as C. H. Turner, and a foundry, the C. H. Turner Foundry Co. These two businesses were merged in 1926 as the C. H. Turner Manufacturing Co. Sometime during the 1930s the initials were dropped and the name was the Turner Manufacturing Co..

Under these names this business manufactured sawmill machinery and agricultural heavy machinery. The sawmill line had disappeared by 1960; in that year the business was acquired by Fletcher Works of Philadelphia and became the Turner Division of Fletcher Industries, Inc.

Information Sources

• 1929 book Carolina, Rebuilding an Ancient Commonwealth, 1584-1925, Volume 4, by Robert D. W. Connor, page 279.

  Charles H. Turner, president of the C. H. Turner Manufacturing Company of Statesville, Iredell County, is also vice president of the Mutual Building & Loan Association.

  Mr. Turner was born in Forsyth County North Carolina, in November, 1875, and he was eleven years of age at the time of the family removal to Statesville in 1887. He is a son of William E. and Victoria (Kallam) Turner, whose old home in Forsyth County was well within sight of Pilot Mountain. On his rural place in Forsyth County William E. Turner maintained a shop in which he did general blacksmith work, besides which he there manufactured machinery for the making of sorghum molasses. This machinery was invented by him, became standard in its sphere and was placed in use in all parts of the South. Mr. Turner was one of the first to transform an old "groundhog" threshing machine into a separator that gave efficient service. He was born in 1849 and thus was too young for service in the Civil War. He and his wife still reside at Statesville, where he is associated with the manufacturing business of his son Charles H., of this review, and where he still gives much attention to experimental and inventive work along mechanical lines. His wife is a most zealous member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

  William E. Turner was long concerned in the operation of saw mills and threshing machines, and in Statesville he established the firm of W. E. Turner & Son, with his son Charles H. as his coadjutor, the younger son, William B., being now associated with the C. H. Turner Manufacturing Company.

  Charles H. Turner gained his early education by attending the schools of his native county, and as the eldest of the children he soon began to assist in the support of the family and in providing educational advantages for the younger children. Upon the family removal to Statesville he found employment as fireman of the engine at the plant of the Overcash Planing Mill, and there he later gained proficiency in the operating of a turning lathe. After five years with this concern Mr. Turner took a position in the machine shop of J. C. Steele & Sons, and after three years with this Statesville firm he went to Charlotte and entered the employ of the Liddell Company in the building of engines. He was thus engaged until he volunteered for service in the Spanish-American war, he having enlisted in the Lee Corps, which became a part of the First North Carolina Volunteer Infantry, and in which he gained the rank of top sergeant. He was with his command in active service in Cuba, and at the close of the war he duly received his honorable discharge.

  Since the year 1900 Mr. Turner has been actively associated with business in a virtually independent way. After his service in the Spanish-American war he became a representative of the Frick interests in the conducting of a jobbing and sales agency at Statesville, and within the eighteen years of his alliance with the Frick concern he was for three years a successful traveling representative, his machinery jobbing business at Statesville having during this interval been in the charge of his father and his other associates. He came out of the war with a capital of $160, and the success he has since achieved has been such that he is now rated above the half million mark in financial standing.

  In the earlier period of his business operations at Statesville Mr. Turner specialized in trading for used engines and other machinery, rebuilding and selling the same as rebuilt machinery. The principal output of his present manufacturing plant is machinery that can be used in connection with the Fordson and farm tractors, and since 1914 his operations have been conducted on a large scale. The Turner Manufacturing Company is devoted largely to the production of heavy agricultural machinery, including threshing machines and saw-mill and wood-working machinery. He has several important patents of his own and also controls others of valuable order. His business is now extended throughout the United States and he has an appreciable export trade in Canada, Mexico, South America, Australia and Russia. Mr. Turner is a man who has been able to see and to do, and thought and action have characterized his career, the while the precepts and influence of his mother have been to him a constant source of inspiration.

  Mr. Turner has given a number of years of loyal service as a member of the Statesville Board of Education, and he and his wife are zealous members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in which he is a steward and in which he has long been a teacher of the young men's Sunday School class. He has served as executive head of the local Rotary Club, is head of the Boy Scout movement in his home city, in the Masonic fraternity he has received the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite and is a member of Oasis Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He is affiliated also with the Patriotic Order Sons of America, the Travelers Protective Association, the United Commercial Travelers and the United Spanish-American War Veterans.

  Mr. Turner married Miss Sue Betty Deal, of Newton, daughter of Sylvania Deal, and as they have no children of their own they esteem themselves fortunate in having in their home two of the four children of one of their sisters-in-law.

• The book Iredell, Piedmont County, by Homer M. Keever, 1976, has the following snippet.

  In 1916 C. H. Turner bought the old Mott flour mill south of the railroad for a warehouse and soon after World War I moved his whole operation to the factory and a foundry he built on Meeting Street. In 1948 a new assembly plant was built on the railroad just west of Wayside School, and in 1958 the plant in Statesville was sold. ...

• A 1925 edition of The Railroad Yardmaster has an advertisement for "C. H. TURNER MANUFACTURER OF Turner's New Pony Saw Mill New and Re-Built Machinery LONG DISTANCE PHONE 74 STATESVILLE NORTH CAROLINA".
• A 1926 edition of Manufacturers' Record has the following snippet.

  C. H. Turner Manufacturing Co. formed by consolidation of the C. H. Turner Foundry Co. and C. H. Turner of Statesville. with plant located on Salisbury-Asheville Div. of the Southern Ry. near Railway Station.

• Listed in Wendel's The Circular Sawmill.
• A January 1927 edition of Printers' Ink mentions "The C. H. Turner Manufacturing Company, Statesville, N. C, tractors, saw mills and agricultural equipment".
• A 1929 edition of Excavating Engineer lists "C. H. Turner Manufacturing Co., saw mill equipment and cordwood saws, Statesville, North Carolina".
• An article on tractor-mounted saws from Harry Ferguson, Inc., states that in 1940, "Ferguson was already handling another cordwood saw made by the Turner Manufacturing Company, Statesville, North Carolina."
• 1947 service guide for "Turner's pony saw mill."
• The Library of Congress' Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series: 1948 lists

  TURNER MANUFACTURING COMPANY ©.
  Turner's gang edger. Service guide
  and parts catalog. Statesville,
  N. C. [19i+7] 25 p., illus.
  © 30Dec47"

• The UK government National Archives has a listing for "FOLDER of leaflets and price lists for woodworking machinery, bean shellers, balers, peanut equipment and cultivators. [late 1940's]. Turner Manufacturing Co., Statesville, North Carolina, U.S.A."
• A 1950 edition of American Lumberman has an ad from Turner Manufacturing Co., Statesville, N. C., for woodworking equipment including portable sawmills, gang edgers, and planer-matcher.
• An article on M4 bayonets includes the following tidbit: "The first contract was to the Turner Manufacturing Company of Statesville, North Carolina for 298,691 bayonets in 1954."
• From a 1960 edition of Machinery comes the following news item.

  Fletcher Works, Philadelphia, has purchased Turner Manufacturing Co., Statesville, NC, manufacturers of farm implements and valves. Company will operate as Turner Division of Fletcher Industries Inc. and will produce narrow fabric looms and yarn...