Arthur  J.  Thurston


            Arthur J. Thurston  was born in Hendricks Township, Shelby County, April 11, 1849, and is the son of  David and Laurinde (Lang) Thurston,  and is of Scotch-Irish extraction.  The family came to Indiana in 1842, and settled first in Johnson County, and afterward removed to Shelby County.  The father of the subject of this sketch still resides upon the old home place in Hendricks Township.  Arthur is the second child of a family of seven children.  He was brought up on a farm, where he remained until nineteen years old.  In 1868, he entered Franklin College at Franklin, Ind., and spent two years at hard study.  He then engaged in teaching school and while in the profession was considered one of the most progressive members in Shelby County.  He spent seven years in the school room, and then in 1877, came to Shelbyville, and invested his savings in an establishment handling agricultural implements and other machinery.  
  He has since added a carriage and buggy department to his business.  He has been very successful and is now a man of considerable property, owning several farms, a great deal of town property, and his own business house.  Mr. Thurston was married to  Miss Mary J. Hackney, of this county, May 9, 1875.  They have two children living,  Frederick Neal  and  William Eden.  In politics our subject is a strong Democrat.  He is a member of Shelby Lodge No, 39, I. O, O. F., and is a Knight of Pythias since 1886.  His wife and he are members of the First Baptist Church of this city, and are faithful in attendance thereat.  Mr. Thurston is one of the most prominent business men in Shelbyville, and his standing as a citizen is above reproach.
History of Shelby County, Indiana ,  "Shelbyville Sketches."  Chicago: Brant & Fuller, 1887, page 539-540.
Contributed by Phyllis Miller Fleming
Photos from  Picturesque Shelbyville, 1909.

The  Shelby  Democrat
February 20, 1879
VOL. 1; No. 37
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from the article, SMILING  SHELBYVILLE!  
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            A. J.  Thurston. Was born in 1849 in Shelby county, Indiana.  Went to school until about twenty-one years of age when he engaged in the pursuit of teaching school in connection with farming, for several years until he came to this city.  The greater portion of his life has been spent in the county of his birth.  In the year 1877, he bought out  Beeson & Bruce, dealers in agricultural implements next door to the Presbyterian Church.  Since then he has carried on a general agricultural implement agency, handling some of the best machines manufactured.  He has the agency for the celebrated Oliver Challed Plows.  This implement takes front rank in the plow line.  There were two hundred and fifty of these plows sold in this county last year making in all over two thousand now in use in Shelby county.  He is also agent for the  ....

         Next biography in the "Smiling Shelbyville" newspaper article, Henry H. Jackson. 
Contributed by Phyllis Miller Fleming

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