- GEORGE W. THURMAN. Within the last few years an extensive
industry has been developed
- in southwestern Wisconsin, where it is found that the fresh
water clams are peculiarly rich in pearls. Many very valuable
ones have been discovered, the thousands of dollars paid out
along every water course in this part of the State. Their proper
handling and most profitable conversion into cash requires considerable
capital and not a little business ingenuity. Mr. THURMAN, of
Albany, Green county, has taken it up, and become widely noted
as an extensive dealer in fresh water pearls. For many years
back he has dealt in horses, and still continues in this line.
- Mr. THURMAN, born in the town of Magnolia, Rock county, Wis.,
April 10, 1848, is a son of
- Richard and Minerva P. (ROBERTS) THURMAN, natives of Troy
and Plattsburg, N.Y., respectively. They had four children, Carrie,
George W., John and Mary, of whom two are now living. Mary married
J. G. BABCOCK, and lives in the town of Magnolia. George W. is
at Albany. The father was a nail cutter in the city of Troy,
N.Y., and came to Wisconsin in the early days. He bought forty
acres in the town of Magnolia, and after a time took an interest
in a sawmill. He died in Magnolia in 1860, at the comparatively
early age of forty-seven. His widow survived him until 1898,
and reached the age of seventy-four. He was a Universalist and
she a Methodist. Richard THURMAN, the grandfather of George W.,
was born in New York, of English lineage, and was a man of strong
character. He followed the trade of a wheelwright, and died in
the South, while engaged in bridge building near Nashville. He
had four sons and several daughters, and died when about eighty
years of age. The father of Minerva P. ROBERTS, referred to above,
was also a native of the State of New York, of Holland-Dutch
descent, and died in middle life. He was the father of one son
and two daughters.
- George W. THURMAN was reared on the farm, and attended a
district school for one year only.
- He began life for himself by working by the month, and presently
had saved enough to buy a horse. He had something of an instinctive
sense of the value of a horse, and became quite a successful
dealer in horses, buying and selling on a large scale. He bought
a farm of eighty acres in the town of Magnolia and lived there
a year, and then sold , moving into the town of Sylvester, where
he lived on a rented farm a year. In 1886 Mr. THURMAN became
a resident of the village of Albany, and here he has since had
his home. Mr. THURMAN donned the Union blue in 1864, when he
went out as a member of Company H, 42d Wis. V.I., and served
until the close of the war.
- Mr. THURMAN and Miss Helen F. BUMP, daughter of W. H. and
Fannie (BRIGGS) BUMP,
- were married in August, 1866. To this union twelve children
were born: Carrie, Alice, Dell, Fannie, Richard, Otis, Hattie,
Helen, George, John, Grace and Allen G. Carried married Edward
LEE, of the town of Decatur, and has three children, Orrie, Marvin
and Helen. Alice married Allen C. BALLARD, and lives one mile
east of Evansville; they have two sons, Floyd and Lyle. Dell
married P. O. HEIDE, and lives in Prairie du Chien; they have
one daughter, Marie. Fannie married Frank BARTON, of Albany,
and has two children, Morris and Alice. Richard is a painter
and is single. Otis married Maud BARNEY, and lives in Albany.
Hattie is single. Helen married Elmer SEELEY, and lives in Albany.
The other children are all unmarried. Allen G. died in the winter
of 1898, at the age of six months.
- Mr. THURMAN belongs to the William Hoyt Post, G.A.R., and
also the Modern Woodmen of
- America. He is a Republican, as are all his sons. He has
served as a trustee of Albany two terms, and is a highly respected
member of the community. He owns a fine home in Albany, and is
becoming wealthy. As mentioned at the introduction of this article
he is a very extensive dealer in fresh water pearls, in which
he became interested as early as 1890. In these ten years he
has built up a reputation throughout this United States as an
expert dealer. He buys and sells entirely on his own judgment,
and is quick in his decision. He sold one pearl for eight thousand
dollars recently, and completes some of his most important transactions,
involving many hundred dollars, in from three to five minutes.
He frequently makes long journeys to buy some article that is
considered perfect in this... [possibly rest missing?]
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the 581-582.
-
- Courtesy of Carol.
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