Kerrenhappuch Turner Monument, Guilford Courthouse
Kerrenhappuch Norman Turner was the wife of James Turner, one of the early settlers of Maryland. Oral tradition indicates that upon news of her son’s grave injury at the Guilford Courthouse, Kerrenhappuch rode on horseback to her wounded son’s aid. She is said to have nursed him to health at Guilford Courthouse. This statue depicts her holding a cup of water and a towel as she nurses her son back to health.
1781 1902 / A HEROINE OF ‘76 / MRS. KERENHAPPUCH TURNER / MOTHER OF ELIZABETH / THE WIFE OF JOSEPH / MOREHEAD OF N.C. AND / GRANDMOTHER OF CAPTAIN / JAMES AND OF JOHN MOREHEAD / A YOUNG N.C. SOLDIER UNDER / GREENE, RODE HORSE-BACK FROM / HER MARYLAND HOME AND AT / GUILFORD COURTHOUSE NURSED / TO HEALTH A BADLY WOUNDED SON. / ERECTED BY / J. TURNER AND JOS. MOTLEY / MOREHEAD
Guilford Courthouse National Military Park
July 4, 1902
36.131690 , -79.846360
"Additional Correspondence," Greensboro Patriot Weekly (Greensboro, NC), June 25, 1902, 6 Link
"Arrangement for the Big Celebration at the Battle Ground," Greensboro Patriot Weekly (Greensboro, NC), June 17, 1903, 1 Link
"Guilford Battle Ground Affairs," Greensboro Patriot Weekly (Greensboro, NC), June 1, 1903, 1-2 Link
"Guilford: The Only Revolutionary Battlefield Now a National Park," Greensboro Patriot Weekly (Greensboro, NC), July 7, 1909, 1-3 Link
"Patriots Today Will Gather on Historic Grounds of Battle," Greensboro Daily News (Greensboro, NC), July 4, 1912 Link
"Regulars For Guilford," Greensboro Daily News (Greensboro, NC), June 28, 1912, 1 Link
"The Battle Ground Celebration," Greensboro Patriot Weekly (Greensboro, NC), July 5, 1905, 6 Link
"The Battle Ground Company," Greensboro Patriot Weekly (Greensboro, NC), September 1, 1902, 1-2 Link
"The Fourth at Guilford Battle Ground," Greensboro Patriot Weekly (Greensboro, NC), July 9, 1902, 1 Link
"The Glorious Fourth," Greensboro Patriot Weekly (Greensboro, NC), July 1, 1901, 1 Link
"Turner Statue, Morehead Monument, Davidson & Nash Arches, Greensboro, N.C." in Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill Link
"Two Big Celebrations," Greensboro Patriot Weekly (Greensboro, NC), June 30, 1903, 1 Link
Additional Images: Morehead "Tent" Statue in Foreground, Inscription, From Gillis Statue, From No-North No-South Monument.
Baker, Thomas E., and Michael H. White. The Monuments at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, North Carolina, (Greensboro, NC: Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, 1991)
Bradshaw, George Samuel. Mrs. Kerenhappuch Turner: A Heroine of 1776. An Address by G. S. Bradshaw, Esq., on Occasion of the Unveiling of a Monument to Her Memory, at the Guilford Battle Ground, July 4th, 1902, (Greensboro NC: The Guilford Battle Ground Company, 1902), (accessed May 16, 2012) Link
Folder 46a in Joseph M. Morehead Papers, #523, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, see scan 2 Link
Folder 51 in Joseph M. Morehead Papers, #523, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, see scan 12 Link
Folder 53 in Joseph M. Morehead Papers, #523, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, see scan 31 Link
Image Folder 1 in Joseph M. Morehead Papers, #523, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, see scan 7 Link
Yes
Bronze statue and plaque, granite base.
James Turner Morehead and Joseph Motley Morehead, who were descendants of Turner, sponsored the monument. Joseph Motely Morehead was President of the Guilford Battleground Company at the time of the unveiling.
An address by George S. Bradshaw, given at the dedication, can be read here.
Kerrenhappuch Turner was born in Virginia in 1690 and married James Turner in 1710. In 1733 they lived in Spottsylvania County, Virginia, and by 1790 she had moved to Montgomery County, North Carolina. She died in 1805 at the age of 108. Several of her descendants have served as Governors and Congressmen in Kentucky and North Carolina. This monument is said to be the first monument to a heroine of the Revolutionary War.
A spoon was originally in her hand but consisted of a normal tinned iron spoon, electrocoated in copper and it soon began to corrode. The W H Mullins company promised to replace the spoon with a fully copper one free of charge in 1907 when it began to show signs of weathering. Today the hand is empty.
Faces North towards the old roadbed of the now abandoned New Garden Road.
The statue is in a row of monuments. It sits between the James Morehead and the Captain Gillis Monuments.
Joseph Morehead took great pride in having a monument to a woman, and later cited it as proof of the relevance of Guilford, writing "Besides we have here the first monument to a Revolutionary heroine erected in the United States. This has been denied to me by some, who, upon investigation had no more to say. There are groups of men and women, but this is to a woman."
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