A Visit to Bethel Valley

March Video Tour - Part 5

In the following video clip you will note my almost child-like excitement over the fact that I had stumbled across the eastern entrance to Bethel Valley near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Please understand that I first heard about the significance of this place to our family history about ten years ago, yet I had never been there.

Bethel Valley is significant in that it may have been one of the places where the Turpins lived after arriving in the Knox County, Anderson County, and Roane County area in the early 1800s.


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A Visit to the Clough-Christenberry Cemetery

March Video Tour - Part 4

Here is some very rough video work--the worst series of clips from my little family history video tour yet. Sorry. I really wish that I had taken more time, but I was in a bit of a rush.

On this part of my journey, I discovered the Clough-Christenberry cemetery located in a wooded area in the middle of the Oak Ridge Country Club golf course. Only a few of the grave markers were legible.

I discovered later that some of the Christenberry names that I mentioned on the clip are connected with the Christenberry families that I visited earlier in the day at the George Jones Memorial Baptist Church cemetery.

Note that the Scott Cemetery (where a number of Turpins are buried) and this Clough-Christenberry cemetery are within sight of one another. In view of the proximity, I am wondering if the country club site may be the site where the Turpins and Christenberrys once lived side by side. As you view the video, ponder that question with me. Hopefully somebody out there in cyberspace has some answers.

Okay, enough for the text. On with the show....


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A Visit to Scott Cemetery

March Video Tour - Part 3

Join me as I search for the gravesite of Martin Turpin (the son of James Turpin, the son of Martin Turpin) at the Scott Cemetery near Oak Ridge, Tennessee.


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En Route to Oak Ridge

March Video Tour - Part 1

On March 3, 2008 I took a trip to the Oak Ridge, Tennessee area to explore possible sites where the Turpins may have settled near the Clinch River in the late 1700's and early 1800's. The following video (Part 1) documents the first part of my journey, taking the viewer to the site of the Wheat Community in Roane County.

In this video I make reference to a "Mary Elizabeth Russell" as being the wife of Martin Turpin. Since producing this clip I have learned that her name was simply "Elizabeth Russell"--"Mary" was not her first name.



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My Interest in Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Has anyone heard of Oak Ridge, Tennessee? Does the term "Manhattan Project" sound familiar?

In the 1940s the United States government built this secret city called "Oak Ridge" to initiate the "Manhattan Project"--an endeavor that would result in the creation of the world's first atomic bombs.

So what does any of this have to do with the Turpin family?

Between the years 1797 and 1805, Martin Turpin entered Tennessee by raft on the Clinch River. He first lived someplace in Knox County, but soon he and his family were living in what is now Anderson and/or Roane Counties. According to family historian, John Strunk, the Turpins lived in Bethel Valley--the site where one day a high security plant known by code name "X-10" would be built.

(The property passed into the hands of the Christenberry family in the 1860s or 1870s; the Turpins lived elsewhere at the time when the government began the Manhattan Project.)

This week I am making a personal trip to Oak Ridge to gain a better sense of where Martin Turpin and his son, James, may have lived.

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