African Methodist Episcopal bishop; b. at Newberry Court House, S. C., Feb. 1, 1834. In his boyhood he lived in the cotton fields of his native state and learned to read and write by his own exertions, while as a servant in the Abbeville Court House, and later in a medical college at Baltimore, he widened his knowledge. In 1858 he was licensed as a preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church South and traveled extensively in the southern states. In 1858 he became a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and soon joined the Missouri conference, in which he became an itinerant minister. In the fall of the same year he was transferred to the Baltimore Conference, where he remained four years, during which he completed his education at Trinity College. In 1862-63 he was pastor of Israel Church, Washington, D. C., and during the Civil War was chaplain of the First Regiment of United States Colored Troops. At the close of the war, he was commissioned chaplain in the regular army and was detailed to the Freedmen's Bureau in Georgia. He returned to the ministry in 1866 and was active also in educational and political affairs. He was elected a member of the Georgia constitutional convention in 1867 and in the following year entered the legislature of the same state, where he remained two terms (1868-72). He was then appointed successively postmaster of Macon, Ga., in 1870, inspector of customs in 1874, and United States secret detective in 1875. In 1876 the general conference of his denomination elected him general manager of its publications, with his residence at Philadelphia, and in 1880 he was chosen bishop. He is an ardent advocate of the return of the negroes to Africa, where he holds that they should build up a nation of their own, and he has organized four annual conferences in Africa at Sierra Leone, Liberia, Transvaal, and South Africa. He bas written African Methodist Episcopal Hymnal (Philadelphia, 1876); African Methodist Episcopal Catechism (1877); and Methodist Polity (1889).
Protestant Episcopal; b. in Philadelphia Jan. 23, 1790; d. in New York Dec. 21, 1861. He was graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, 1807; settled as pastor at Chestertown, Md., 1812; became professor of historic theology in the General Theological Seminary, New York, 1818, and from 1821 till his death was professor of Biblical learning. He was a sound and able commentator. He translated, with Bishop Whittingham, Jahn's Introduction to the Old Testament (New York, 1827), and Planck's Introduction to Sacred Philology and Interpretation (1834); wrote commentaries upon the Greek test of Hebrews (1852), Romans (1853), Ephesians (1856), Galatians (1856); prepared Companion to the Book of Genesis (1841); Biographical Notices of some of the most Distinguished Jewish Rabbies, and Translations of Portions of their Commentaries and Other Works (1847); Thoughts on the Origin, Character, and Interpretation of Scripture Prophecy (1852); Teachings of the Master (1858); Spiritual Things compared with Spiritual, or Gospels and Acts illustrated by Parallel References (1859); The Gospels according to the Ammonian Sections and the Tables of Eusebius (1861).
Bibliography: Autobiography of Samuel H. Turner, New York, 1863.
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