>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.