James Turner Morehead (North Carolina politician)

This article is about the Representative from North Carolina. For other uses, see James Morehead (disambiguation).

James Turner Morehead is the name shared by two separate individuals, uncle and nephew, who were members of a prominent nineteenth-century North Carolina family.

The first James Turner Morehead (January 11, 1799 – May 5, 1875) was the younger brother of North Carolina Govorner John Motley Morehead[1] and a Congressional Representative from North Carolina; born in Rockingham County, North Carolina, January 11, 1799; attended the common schools; was graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1819; studied law; was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Greensboro, North Carolina; commissioner of Greensboro in 1832, 1834, and 1835; served as a member of the North Carolina Senate in 1835, 1836, 1838, 1840, and 1842; trustee of the University of North Carolina 1836-1868; elected as a Whig to the Thirty-second Congress (March 4, 1851 - March 4, 1853); declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1852 to the Thirty-third Congress; resumed the practice of his profession; also engaged in agricultural pursuits and operated an iron works; died in Greensboro, Guilford County, N.C., on May 5, 1875; interment in the Presbyterian Cemetery.

The second James Turner Morehead (1840-1908) was the son of Governor John Motley Morehead. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1861. Commissioned a lieutenant in the Confederate army, he was wounded at Bristoe Station, Virginia in 1863. Following the war, he served two terms as a state senator (1870-1874). He became a pioneering chemical manufacturer, who with his son, John Motley Morehead III founded one of the world's leading chemical companies -- Union Carbide. He was a serial entrepreneur, chemist, engineer, inventor and author of scientific works. He had one son John Motley Morehead III chemist, industrialist, and noted philanthropist (0 children) and four daughters: Mary Kerr Morehead Harris (2 children: Trent Harris, William Nelson Harris), Eliza Lindsay Morehead Nelson (1 child: William Harris Nelson), Lilly Connolly Morehead Mebane (0 children), and Emma Gray Morehead Parrish (0 children).

See also

• Thirty-second United States Congress

External links

• U.S. Congressional Biographical Directory
• John Motley Morehead : 200th birthday celebration, 1796-1996 / Robert Lindsay Morehead, Anne Fulcher Nelson, Charles E. Lovelace, Jr.
• NCpedia [2]
• The King of Rockingham Country and the Original Bridge to Nowhere - The Story of B.F. Mebane [3]
• The Morehead Family of North Carolina and Virginia [4]