By William “Skip” Deegans
Shown in this 1913 photograph at the right end of the bottom row is Lewisburg native and inventor Charles Augustus Turner. Born in 1877, Turner was the son of Thomas Memory Turner and Kate Grimes Turner. Turner’s father was the director of the Lewisburg Concert Band. He had served in the 14th Virginia Calvary Band of the Confederate Army in the Civil War. Turner’s grandfather had been the band leader of the Stonewall Brigade Band of Staunton, Virginia. The family was beset by tragedy in 1889 when Charles Turner’s brother, Claude, died at age 15 when he fell head first into a vat of boiling water while dipping tomatoes for processing at the Greenbrier Cannery in Lewisburg. He is buried in the Lewisburg Cemetery.
Working out of a machine shop at his home in Norfolk, Virginia, Charles Turner received a patent in 1903 for a coal, coke and grain trimmer designed to trim cargos (to level the load for stability) in the holds of large ships. One man and Turner’s machine could replace 50-75 laborers. During the Jamestown Expo in 1907, Turner invented a ventilation system for baby incubators. In 1909, came his invention of a talcum powder container with a self-closing soft top that could be used with one hand. Perhaps, his most interesting device was an automatic fishing reel and fly caster. A powerful spring in the handle supplied the power to propel bait and hook from 5 to 50 feet. Once a fish was hooked, the pressure of the finger would release a rachet and the fish would be automatically hauled to the end of the pole.
Turner suffered from chronic indigestion for much of his life and in 1926-1929, while living in Atlanta, he developed a remedy called Digestamint that promised to bring immediate relief from “indigestion and upset stomachs, hiccoughing, sourness, gas, heartburn, nausea, shortness of breath, fullness, palpitation and smothering sensation.” Turner died in 1943 in Tampa, Florida.
Sources: Greenbrier Independent, Virginian-Pilot, The People of the Old Stone Cemetery: The Obituaries by Moran Donnally Bunn.
