Cabell County, West Virginia Biography of Thomas Collins THORNBURG ************************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: Material may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is obtained from the contributor of the file. These pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor. Submitted by Valerie Crook, , March 1999 ************************************************************************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 99 THOMAS COLLINS THORNBURG was for a number of years in the railroad service, became a traffic manager, and out of his long experience has founded and developed at Hunt- ington the Thornburg Traffic Bureau, a highly specialized and technical organization with a clientele embracing many West Virginia business and industrial concerns. Mr. Thornburg is a member of an old family of Cabell County, but was born at Richmond, Virginia, April 6, 1892. The Thornburgs are of Scotch ancestry, and settled in Virginia in Colonial times. His grandfather, Collins U. Thornburg, was born in West Virginia in 1834, was a pioneer farmer of Cabell County, and while he was away serving in the Confederate army during the Civil war his fine old homestead, located at what is now Guyandotte, was burned and destroyed by the Federals. That is how the family property was swept away during the war. Collins V. Thornburg recovered his early losses during subsequent years, and continued his life as a farmer near Huntington until his death in 1899. He married Nora Miller, who was born near Cincinnati in 1840, and is still living at Hunting- ton past the age of four score. All her children, four boys and three girls, are living, namely: Harry C.; Miss Lyda, a teacher in the public schools of Huntington; Charles, a merchant in the State of Iowa; Edgar, secretary and treas- urer of the Foster-Thornburg Hardware Company of Hunt- ington; Frank, a traveling salesman with home at Hunting- ton; Prances, twin sister of Frank, an employe of the Mercereau Hawkins Tie Company of Huntington; and Mrs. Nora Yarbrough, wife of a traveling salesman living at Huntington. Harry C. Thornburg, who was born at Martinsburg, West Virginia, in 1866, has spent all his active life in railroad service. He was reared near Huntington, and lived for several years at Richmond, Virginia, where he married and where he was in the service of the Chesapeake & Ohio Rail- road as a machinist. He has been with the same railroad ever since, removing to Huntington in 1900, and in 1916 was promoted from machinist to foreman of the roundhouse and is still on duty. Harry C. Thornburg is a democrat, a member of the Johnson Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of Huntington, and is affiliated with Reese Camp No. 66, Woodmen of the World, and Huntington Lodge No. 313, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Harry C. Thornburg married Belle Hartwell Turner, who was born at Eichmond, Virginia, in 1872. The oldest of their children is Thomas Collins. Rosa, the second in age, is the wife of John Vaughan, a jewelry merchant at Louisa, Kentucky. Mamie, the youngest child, is the wife of Earl Branham, who is connected with the Du Pont Powder Com pany and lives at Huntington. Thomas Collins Thornburg acquired a public school educa- tion at Huntington, and has lived in that city since he was eight years of age. He left school at the age of sixteen and began his service with the Baltimore & Ohio Railway Company as a messenger boy. He possessed the special in- tellectual qualifications that opened the way for rapid advancement in the complicated subject of rates and tariff, and while still at Huntington he was promoted to rate clerk. In 1914 he was transferred, with an advance of salary and as rate clerk, to Fairmont, and in 1917 went to the Cleve- land, Ohio, headquarters of the Baltimore & Ohio, as chief rate clerk. He resigned this position in 1919 and became traffic manager at Cleveland for the Ohio Chemical and Manufacturing Company. In 1920 Mr. Thornburg returned to Huntington and established the Thornburg Traffic Bureau, of which he is sole owner. This bureau performs the important service of freight audit bureau and the handling of nearly every sub- ject involving freight transportation for business interests. The bureau looks after a large volume of business before the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Public Service Commission. The offices of the bureau are in the Lewis- Samson Building on Fourth Avenue in Huntington. Mr. Thornburg is a democrat, a member of the Johnson Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the West Side Country Club of Huntington. He married in that city in 1913 Miss Mae Bland, daughter of John H. and Edna May Bland, resident of Huntington, where her father is a retired building contractor. Mrs. Thornburg is a graduate of the Huntington High School with the class of 1911 and also a graduate of Marshall College. To their marriage were born four children: Thomas Collins, Jr., born May 30, 1914; Edna Hartwell, who died at the age of eighteen months; James Lewis, born December 13, 1919; and Edgar Horace, born May 7, 1921.