After the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, Turner was appointed county tax collector with biracial approval. He resigned after a year and, running as an Independent, was elected city councilman. He and another former bondsman were the city's first black city councilmen. When the town began paying them, Turner resigned, because he believed that in such destitute times a city official should serve without compensation. When Conservative Democrats failed to promise voting rights for blacks, Turner helped deliver the town and county in 1868 to the victorious Ulysses S. Grant.

Young first read a copy of the Book of Mormon in 1830 when it was initially published. He thought highly of it and believed it answered many of his religious questions, but he cautiously wanted to make sure the Mormons were sincere and sensible in their faith. He listened to their traveling missionaries, visited a Mormon congregation in Pennsylvania, prayed with them, was persuaded of their biblical focus, and submitted to baptism in 1832. He and a friend immediately traveled to Kirtland, Ohio, to meet the Mormon leader, Joseph Smith, Jr.