Person:Albert Thurman (1)

A Standard History of Georgia and Georgians

Lucian Lamar Knight, Volume 6, page 3104-3106, Lewis Publishing Company, 1917

Albert S. Thurman. Born about three years after the close of the Civil war, Judge Thurman was named in honor of one of the great distinguished officers of the Confederacy, General Albert Sidney Johnston, and thus in his personal cognomen he has been enabled to perpetuate the fame of a great commander and to signalize his father's loyal devotion to the cause of the Confederacy during the period that brought so much of unmerited disaster and distress to the fair Southland. Judge Thurman, a representative member of the bar of Jasper County and now serving on the bench of the city court of Monticello, judicial center of that county, is a scion of a family whose name has been worthily linked with the history of Georgia for nearly a century. The lineage of the Thurman family traces back to staunch old Irish stock but the name early became one of prominence in England, whence came the founder of the American branch, John Thurman, who left England at the time of the Bacon rebellion and who settled in the Virginia colony.

Albert Sidney Thurman was born in Calhoun County, Alabama, on the 15th of April, 1868, and is a son of David Richardson Thurman and Matilda Brown (Shepherd) Thurman. The father of Judge Thurman was a son of William Thurman, who was born in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, and whose parents had settled in what is now Fulton County, Georgia, in 1826, their home having been established near Fort Walker, then in Henry County. The great-grandfather of Judge Thurman obtained a large tract of land in the present County of Fulton and there William Thurman was for many years an extensive planter and representative citizen. He continued his residence in Georgia until the time of his death, and he attained to the patriarchal age of ninety-two years. He was a man of strong individuality and sterling character, was an old-line whig in his political proclivities, and he and his wife, whose maiden name was White, became the parents of seven sons and six daughters, all of the sons having served as valiant soldiers of the Confederacy in the Civil war, and David R., father of Judge Thurman, was the youngest of the children, his birth having occurred in the year 1839. The mother of Judge Thurman was born in the year 1843, the seventh in order of birth in a family of ten children, and she is a daughter of Abraham Shepherd, who was a native of Virginia and who settled in what is now Jasper County, Georgia, in 1815.

David R. Thurman was born and reared in Georgia and was a lad of sixteen years when he manifested his loyalty to the cause of the Confederate States by becoming a member of the Gate City Guards, organized in the City of Atlanta. One year later this company's organization lapsed and he then joined Captain Everett's company of artillery, with which command he took part in every engagement in which it thereafter participated until the close of the war.

After the long and sanguinary conflict had come to a close David R. Thurman returned to the parental home in Fulton County, and shortly afterward he was given a deed to a plantation of 300 acres, which he forthwith presented to his sister Eliza, the wife of Elihu Cranford. He then purchased a small farm in Alabama, where he remained three years, within which period his son Albert S., of this review, was born. At the expiration of the interval noted he returned with his family to Georgia and settled at Sharpsburg. Coweta County, where he continued to be successfully engaged in the manufacturing of wagons and buggies until 1878, when he established his home in the Village of Turin, that county, where he lived virtually retired from active business during the remainder of his life. He died in 1910, shortly prior to his seventysecond birthday anniversary, and his widow now passed the winter seasons in the home of her son, Judge Albert T., whose name initiates this article, the while she resides at other times in the home of her son Lovic Pierce Thurman, at Tifton, Berrien County, both sons according to her the deepest filial solicitude. David R. Thurman was a man of strong mentality and well fortified convictions, his life having been guided and governed by the highest principles of integrity and honor and his having been secure place in the confidence and good will of all who knew him. He was a staurch democrat was affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and the United Confederate Veterans, and was an earnest member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as is also his widow. Of the four children Judge Thurman is the eldest; William Marvin, an architect and contractor, is engaged in business in the City of Atlanta; Lovic Pierce is identified with a leading manufacturing enterprise at Tifton, Berrien County; and the other child died in infancy.

|Judge Thurman passed the period of his childhood and youth in Coweta County, having been an infant at the time of the return of his parents from Alabama to Georgia. That he made good use of the educational advantages afforded him is indicated by the fact that when nineteen years of age he became a successful teacher in the schools of his home county. He continued to follow the pedagogic profession for six consecutive years, and in the meanwhile he devoted his otherwise leisure time to the study of law, his application to his textbooks being unremitting and his receptive mind enabling him to make substantial progress in the absorption and assimilation of the principles of .iurisprudence. On the 9th of September, 1893, upon examination before Judge Charles L. Bartlett, who was presiding on the bench of the Superior Court in the City of Macon, he was duly admitted to the bar, to the work of which he came most admirably fortified. Judge Thurman engaged in practice at Montieello, the judicial center of Jasper County and was soon called upon to serve as justice of the peace for the city district. He retained this office four years, and was then elected city solicitor for the old County Court, since abolished, a position in which he served one term of two years. He then turned his attention entirely to the private practice of his profession and gave special attention to criminal law, in which connection he has won many notable victories and been retained in some of the most important criminal cases presented in the courts of this part of the state, including a number of murder cases. He has made also an equally high reputation as a resourceful and versatile lawyer in the civil branch of practice, and his clientage in this field has been of representative character. He is one of the attorneys retained in the contest between Jasper and Butts counties relative to taxation against the Central Georgia Power Company, with incidental question as to the definition of the line between the two counties, the matter involving the reception in perpetuity of $6,000 in taxes annually. Judge Thurman drafted the bill whose passage by the State Legislature provided for the creation of the Monticello Board of Education, and he was the first man to be nominated for president of the board, an honor which he declined in 1907. Judge Thurman purchased the old homestead plantation of his paternal great-grandfather, in Fulton County, and there he was successfully engaged in agricultural pursuits until 1914, when he sold the property, and since that time he has found ample demands upon his time and attention in his service as judge of the City Court of Montieello, an office of which he has been the incumbent since 1906, his election having occurred at the time when the County Court was abolished and his retention of office having been through two re-elections.

Judge Thurman is a man whose personality savors of the fine old traditions that marked the ante-bellum regime in the South. He is courtly, dignified and affable, is genial and kindly, and is possessed of a natural wit and humor that have come into specially effective play in his service as an advocate before court or jury—a vital human touch which never fails of appreciation in any tribunal of justice. He is a student and reader of the best in literature, remarkably familiar with and able to quote from the works of the great English poets, and he finds much of solace and enjoyment in his close communion with the many volumes in his large and select private library. He has definite literary talent and has written a number of poems of marked excellence, the same having received commendation from critical sources and also on the part of casual readers. He owns a fine home in Montieello, and the same is known for its generous and gracious hospitality, and he holds other valuable property interests in his home city and county. In the Masonic fraternity Judge Thurman has received the Knights Templars degrees and is identified also with the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is an able and uncompromising advocate of the principles of the democratic party and both he and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the while their circle of friends is limited only by that of their acquaintances.

At Turin, Coweta County, on the 21st of June, 1888, was solemnized the marriage of Judge Thurman to Miss Vida Arnell, who was born and reared in that county and who is a daughter of John Giles Arnell and Mary Elizabeth (Page) Arnell, the former of whom is deceased and the latter of whom still resides in the old home at Turin. John G. Arnell was a student in the military academy at Manton, Georgia, at'the time when the Civil war was precipitated, and he promptly made good his escape from the institution in order to enlist as a youthful soldier of the Confederacy, his service having continued during practically the entire period of the war. He was one of the honored and influential citizens of Coweta County at the time of his death. Judge and Mrs. Thurman became the parents of six children, all of whom were born in Jasper County: Lovic Haddon, who was born July 1, 1901, was-the youngest child and his death occurred January 1, 1913. Margaret Elizabeth, who was born May 29, 1889, is the wife of Guy C. Lane, of Jacksonville, this state, and they have one child, Guy C., Jr., born January 24, 1914. John Benjamin, who was born August 23, 1891, was graduated in the Monticello High School, wedded Miss Para Houghton, of Jefferson County, and they reside in this state. Albert Sidney, Jr., who remains at the parental home, was born February 23, 1894, and is now a student in the Georgia Military Academy. David Richardson, who was born August 19, 1896, is a student in the high school at Mansfield, as a member of the class of 1916. Veda, who is a student in the Monticello High School, was born March 14, 1899.