Barton County, Missouri Biographies-Hon. Berry G. Thurman

History Of Hickory, Polk, Cedar, Dade And Barton Counties, 
Missouri, 1889.  Published by Goodspeed. Pages 952, 953

Hon. Berry G. Thurman, attorney-at-law, and State senator from the twenty-eighth district, 
was born in Miller County, Mo., January 25, 1851, and is one of the representative men of 
the county.  He is the son of John B. and Jane (Allee) Thurman, and the grandson of Robert 
Thurman, who was a native of Virginia.  John B. Thurman was born in Kentucky, in 1814, and 
in about 1832 came to St. Louis County, Mo., where he remained for some time, and then came 
on to Moniteau County, where he married Miss Jane Allee.  He was a blacksmith by trade, but 
in later years he followed farming.  He moved to Miller, then to Morgan County, and finally 
found a home in Dade County, in 1868.  He died January 1, 1888, but the mother is still living 
in that county.  Both were members of the Baptist Church, and he was a Democrat in politics.  
Hon. Berry G. Thurman, one of the ten children, six sons and four daughters, received his 
literary education in the common schools, and was a student in the Missouri State University 
two years.  He read law under Judge D. A. DeArmond, and graduated from the law department of 
the above university in 1873.  The same year he was admitted to the bar at Lamar, though he 
located at Greenfield, Dade County.  He was elected prosecuting attorney of Dade County in 
1874, and again in 1878, being the first Democrat chosen to that office in that county after 
the war.  In 1884 he came to Lamar, and formed a partnership with A. J. Wray, which still 
exists.  In 1888 he was elected to the State Senate, where he received appointment on the 
following important committees: judiciary revision, labor, mines and mining, deaf and dumb 
asylums.  November 12, 1879, Mr. Thurman married Miss Lula Clark, daughter of Capt. S. S. 
Clark, and a native of Benton County, Mo.  They have two children: William H. and Bessie.  
Mr. Thurman is a Knight Templar in the Masonic fraternity, and stands at the head of the bar 
at Lamar.  Mrs. Thurman belongs to the Congregational Church.

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