My Genealogy Hound

Dr. D. P. Thurber, physician and surgeon for Sligo Furnace Co. since March, 1887, and general practitioner, was born in Moundsville, W. Va., in 1849, being the son of N. U. and Mary A. (Pickard) Thurber, natives of New York and Ohio, respectively. They were married in the last named State, and in about 1844 or 1845 they removed to West Virginia, where they remained until about 1869 or 1870, when they came to Wayne County, Mo., and here the father died in 1880. In early life he followed merchandising at Moundsville, and in about 1847 or 1848 he invented a grain fanning-mill, which was a profitable and successful invention. After this for several years he was engaged in their manufacture in South Carolina and Tennessee. After his removal to Missouri he carried on farming and stock raising. About 1862 he joined the Twelfth Virginia as regimental quartermaster, in the United States army, afterward brigade quartermaster, remaining as such until the close of the war, in the Army of the Potomac. His father was an Englishman, and settled in Long Island in early days. Our subject’s mother died in Ohio in 1884, where she moved after the death of her husband. She was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and he of the Baptist. He was married twice. Dr. D. P. Thurber was one of three children, two sons and one daughter, born to his father’s second marriage. He was educated in Moundsville Academy, and at the age of nineteen began the study of medicine in Moundsville, W. Va., graduating from Missouri Medical College, at St. Louis, in 1870, after a two years’ course. He began near Moundsville, W. Va., where he practiced for some time, and since then has practiced in Ohio, Missouri and Texas, meeting with great success. In 1879 he was married at New Alexandria, Ohio, to Miss Anna Chilton, a native of Pennsylvania, and the daughter of William and Louisa Chilton. Mr. Chilton died when his daughter was quite small. To the Doctor and wife were born six children. Dr. Thurber came to Sligo Furnace in 1887. He has been considerable of a traveler in his day, and he and a brother were in the fruit business in New York City for a short time. During the war, and when but fourteen years of age, he enlisted in Company A, Fourteenth Virginia Cavalry, and served until the termination of hostilities. He is a Democrat in politics, casting his first presidential vote for Lincoln in 1864, and is a member of the A. O. U. W.