Edward Turner was born on November 25, 1778 in Fairfax County, Va. He was the son of Lewis Ellzey and Theodosia (Payne) Turner, and a grandson of William Payne who, according to "Parson" Weems, once knocked George Washington down. In 1786 the Turners moved to Kentucky.
Becoming a student in Transylvania University, Edward attended at intervals, as time and means permitted, and studied law while serving as clerk in the office of George Nicholas. About this time Nicholas was championing Jefferson's Kentucky resolutions (1798).
With a Democratic background and with letters of introduction from Gen. Green Clay of Kentucky, late in 1801 Turner went to Natchez, Miss. , where the Democrats were just coming into power.
The young lawyer was well received, for within a few months he was made aide-de-camp and private secretary to the governor and clerk of the lower house of the territorial legislature.
In 1802, he became clerk of the court of Jefferson County.
In the summer of 1803 he was appointed by the federal government register of the newly established land office at Washington, Miss. Losing this place in December 1804, he returned to Jefferson County, where he practised law until 1810 and then moved to a plantation he had acquired in Warren County.
He was elected to the legislature in 1811.
Returning to Natchez in 1813, he became city magistrate and president of the board of selectmen. Two years later, he was again elected to the legislature and was chosen to prepare a digest of the laws of the territory. This was published in 1816--Statutes of the Mississippi Territory.
As a representative of Adams County in the convention of 1817 he was a member of the committee that drafted the first constitution of Mississippi, and he continued to shape the affairs of the new state as chairman of the judiciary committee in the first state legislature (1817 - 18), and as speaker of the house in 1819 and 1820. For a short time in 1820-21 he was attorney-general.
In 1822 he was appointed judge of the criminal court of Adams County and in 1824 was advanced to the supreme court of Mississippi.
Five years later he became chief justice and remained in this office until the adoption of the constitution of 1832, which provided for the popular election of judges.
In 1834 he was elected chancellor, serving until 1839, in which year he was an unsuccessful candidate for governor on the Whig ticket.
In 1840 he was again elected to the supreme court to fill a term which expired in 1843. He was not a candidate for reelection, but in 1844 he was sent to the state Senate and served one term.
The last twelve years of his life he held no political office, but continued for several years to serve as president of the trustees of Jefferson College at Washington, Miss.
His success in public and private life was due to the fact that his "intellect was of a sound and practical cast, and his industry most remarkable. " He was also "of unsurpassed integrity" and he had "exceedingly kind and conciliatory manners. "
Quotes from others about the person
Although Turner is remembered chiefly as a jurist, "his warmest friends, " according to Henry S. Foote, "did not claim for him any very extraordinary knowledge of law as a science. "
On September 5, 1802, he was married to Mary, daughter of Cato West, a prominent Democrat of Jefferson County.
In February of 1811 his wife died, and on December 27, 1812, he married Eliza Baker, daughter of a wealthy planter from New Jersey.
By his marriages and by the practice of law he had become comparatively wealthy and he lived in comfort in his home near Natchez.
He was survived by his wife and two daughters.
