Tucker County, West Virginia Biography of DAVID WALLACE THURSTON This file was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: **The Submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch.** This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 535 Tucker DAVID WALLACE THURSTON, editor and publisher of the Parsons Advocate at Parsons, judicial center of Tucker County, was born at Waverly, New York, March 12, 1885, and was eight years of age at the time of the family removal to West Virginia, where the home was shortly afterward established at Parsons, he having here profited fully by the advantages afforded in the public schools, in- cluding the high school. In his school vacations Mr. Thurs- ton gained his initial experience in the "art preservative of all arts" by service in the office of the Mountain State Patriot. Later he was employed as a compositor and gen- eral workman in the office of the Mountain State Patriot, and in September, 1907, he became identified with the paper of which he is now editor and publisher. On the 1st of July, 1913, he leased the plant and business of the Parsons Advocate, and under this lease he continued the publication until November, 1919, when he became owner of the prop- erty. The Advocate was founded in 1896 by A. A. Dorsey, who in 1907 sold it to the Cheat Valley Publishing Com- pany, from which Mr. Thurston acquired it in 1919, as above noted. The paper has continuously been an influential local advocate of the principles and policies of the repub- lican party, and under the present control is an specially effective exponent of local and community interests, with an excellent corps of correspondents throughout Tucker County, of which county it is the official paper. The ex- cellence of the paper as a news vehicle and as a director of popular thought and action is shown in the fact that its circulation has been extended largely outside the limits of Tucker County. Mr. Thurston is secretary of the Republican Central Committee of Tucker County and chairman of the Parsons City Committee of the party. He has been influ- ential in the local councils and campaign activities of the "Grand Old Party," and cast his first presidential vote for Col. Theodore Roosevelt, in 1904. Mr. Thurston is a stockholder in the Philippi Blanket Mill, the Dr. O. A. Miller Chemical Company, and with the local company engaged in development work in the oil and gas fields of Oklahoma. He has passed the official chairs in the Parsons Council of the Junior Order United American Mechanics, and in their home city he and his wife are active and valued members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Mrs. Thurston having charge of the cradle work of its Sunday school. April 27, 1912, recorded the marriage of Mr. Thurston and Miss Vesta S. Kryder, who was born at Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, the fourth in order of birth of the nine children of Amos and Blanche (Moran) Kryder, who came to West Virginia when Mrs. Thurston was a child, she hav- ing been educated in the schools of Davis and Parsons, this state. Mr. and Mrs. Thurston became the parents of three daughters, Gladys and Grace, twins, the former of whom died March 26, 1920, and Lila Pet. Mr. Thurston is a son of Daniel Wallace Thurston and Clarissa L. (Wiggins) Thnrston, whose marriage was solemnized at Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Daniel W. Thurston, who died at Parsons, West Virginia, November 18, 1920, at the age of seventy-nine years, was born and reared in the State of New York and represented the same as a gallant young soldier of the Union in the Civil war, he having been a member of Company I, One Hundred and Ninth New York Volunteer Infantry, which was assigned to the Army of the Potomac, and with which he served until the close of the war. He took part in many engagements, including the battles of Petersburg and Antietam, and having been once wounded in the hip. He was one of the honored comrades of the post of the Grand Army of the Republic at Parsons at the time of his death. His widow, aged seventy-one years (1922), still resides at Parsons. She is a native of New York State, a daughter of the late John Wiggins. Alta R., eldest of the children, is the wife of E. D. Shuck, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; LaPette LaFay is a valued assistant of her brother in the office of the Parsons Advocate, and this brother, the only son, is the immediate subject of this review.