Turpin Family History

The Turpins were of Huguenot extraction. Solomon Turpin had a grant of land in Dorchester County, Maryland in 1757. This deed to Solomon was given by Lord Calvert, brother of Lord Baltimore. Solomon's will was probated in Sussex County, Delaware on February 19, 1776 and showed him to have left four daughters and a son.

The daughters were Sarah Turpin Maston, Mary Turpin Clarkson, Rebekah Turpin, and Elizabeth Turpin. The latter two never married. The son, Joseph Turpin, married Rachel Baynard, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Baynard on June 18, 1772. Rachel died suddenly of an epileptic fit on March 10, 1785 and Joseph died just a few months later on September 19, 1785. At the time of the last family writing in 1927, Solomon's deed was in the possession of Jack Turpin of Centerville, Maryland who lived at Locust Hill, the home of the Turpins for four generations, being built by Jack's great grandfather, Thomas Baynard Turpin about 1812, or earlier. Before that date, they had lived in the country on a farm called Timber Neck, having moved there from Seaford, Delaware.

The Turpins of Virginia came from France in the early 1700's about the same time that this line of Turpins came to Delaware. There are supposedly records that the two lines were of the same lineage, but the connection at this point has never been definitively traced.

Joseph Turpin and his wife Rachel Baynard Turpin had several children: Solomon was born in 1773; Thomas Baynard was born in 1775; White was born June 2, 1777; and Margaret was born in 1780. Not much is known about Solomon, other than the fact that he had a son named Baynard who went to live in Bastrop, La. after 1832. Thomas Baynard was the head of the part of the family known as the Maryland Branch.

White was the head of the Mississippi Branch and Margaret was the head of the New Jersey Branch.