Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

3104 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANSofficers of the Confederacy, General Albert Sidney Johnston, and thus in hispersonal 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 anddistress to the fair Southland. Judge Thurman, a representative member ofthe 'bar of Jasper County and now serving on the bench of the city court ofMonticello, judicial center of that county, is a scion of a family whose namehas 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 butthe name early became one of prominence in England, whence came thefounder of the American branch, John Thurman, who left England at the timeof the Bacon rebellion and who settled in the Virginia colony.Albert Sidney Thurman was born in Calhoun County, Alabama, on the15th of April, 1868, and is a son of David Richardson Thurman and MatildaBrown (Shepherd) Thurman. The father of Judge Thurman was a son ofWilliam Thurman, who was born in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, andwhose 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 thepresent County of Fulton and there William Thurman was for many years"an extensive planter and representative citizen. He continued his residencein Georgia until the time of his death, and he attained to the-patriarchal ageof 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 sixdaughters, all of the sons having served as valiant soldiers of the Confederacyin the Civil war, and David R., father of Judge Thurman, was the youngestof the children, his birth having occurred in the year 1839. The mother ofJudge Thurman was born in the year 1843, the seventh in order of birth in afamily of ten children, and she is a daughter of Abraham Shepherd, who wasa native of Virginia and who settled in what is now Jasper County, Georgia, in1815.David R. Thurman was born and reared in Georgia and was a lad of sixteenyears when he manifested his loyalty to the cause of the Confederate States bybecoming 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 CaptainEverett's company of artillery, with which command he took part in everyengagement 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 afterwardhe was given a deed to a plantation of 300 acres, which he forthwith presentedto his sister Eliza, the wife of Elihu Cranford. He then purchased a smallfarm in Alabama, where he remained three years, within which period his sonAlbert S., of this review, was born. At the expiration of the interval notedhe returned with his family to Georgia and settled at Sharpsburg, CowetaCounty, where he continued to be successfully engaged in the manufacturingof wagons and buggies until 1878, when he established his home in the Villageof Turin, that county, where he lived virtually retired from active businessduring the remainder of his life. He died in 1910, shortly prior to his seventysecondbirthday anniversary, and his widow now passed the winter seasonsin 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 filialsolicitude. David R. Thurman was a man of strong mentality and well fortified convictions, his life having been guided and governed by the highestprinciples of integrity and honor and his having been secure place in the confidence and good will of all who knew him. He was a staunch democrat