Greenbrier County, West Virginia    Biography: Joseph Samuel THURMOND

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Transcribed and submitted by Valerie Crook, May 1999.
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From West Wirginia Legislative Hand Book and Manual - 1917

THURMOND, JOSEPH SAMUEL (Democrat). Speaker of the House of
Delegates. Address: Alderson, West Va. Was born May 9, 1855, and reared
on a farm in Fayette county, West Virginia. He received his early education in
the common schools of that county, and later at Shelton College, Saint Albans,
under the tutorage of Dr. P. B. Reynolds. Numbered among his schoolmates
are Dr. George B. Foster, of the University of Chicago; Hon. James H. Stewart,
present Commissioner of Agriculture of this State; Senator William E. and Hon.
Joseph Chilton, and Rev. John McCutcheon, former Baptist pastor of Morgan-
town, West Virginia. Leaving school he taught in the public schools of Fayette
county for several years. He was a member of the Board of Examiners. After-
wards he engaged in the practice of civil engineering and farming, and still later
in coal mining and banking. Mr. Thurmond was the first Mayor of Thurmond
and was continued in that office for seven years, or until he moved to Greenbrier
county in 1910. He was elected to the West Virginia Legislature as a delegate
from Greenbrier county in 1914; re-elected in 1916 and in 1917 was made Speaker
of the House of Delegates. His home is at Alderson, Greenbrier county, where
he owns and successfully manages a farm. Mr. Thurmond has always been an
uncompromising Democrat.