Page 8 - Demo

4402 Boonsboro Road
A portrait of Russell M. Thurmond Sr., Lilian Stevens Thurmond Myers, Lloyd A. Myers Sr., and their children
BY MARJORIE K. HUINER
In November 1906, Russell Melville Thurmond, a native of Nelson County, Virginia, bought approximately 38 acres of land in two adjacent tracts from James Holmes for $11,000. The property was located at the junction of Trents Ferry Road and Lexington Turnpike (now Boonsboro Road) in Bedford County.
The land that Thurmond bought included a two-story frame house with
a tin roof and covered porches on three sides. The house was probably built in the early twentieth century. It stood at the corner where a Colonial Revival red- brick house now stands in 2011.
The property Thurmond purchased also included a carriage house, a barn, and possibly a tenant house. The carriage house was located in the back at
what is now 1025 Greenway Court. The barn was located at what is now 4310 Greenway Place. A spring at a low point on the property provided water for
the house. A windmill-operated pump adjacent to the house brought water from the spring to the second floor. There were orchards on the property, and Thurmond hired out the task of tending them along with other farm activities. His primary occupation was railroad construction, not agriculture.
The Russell Thurmond Family:
1907 to 1925
Two months after purchasing the Lexington Turnpike land in Bedford County, Russell Thurmond married his first cousin Lilian Clarke Stevens, who had been born in 1880 in Lovingston,
Virginia, to George Seaton Stevens and Ella Thurmond Stevens. Lilian’s father George Stevens was clerk of court for Nelson County and later a judge there.
Russell M. Thurmond was born in 1872 to William Henry Thurmond and Mildred Martin Thurmond and grew up on a farm near Rockfish Depot on the Southern Railway line. Russell exhibited an industrious nature at an early age. When he was still a boy he worked one summer for a neighboring farmer and was paid with a calf instead of cash. He took the calf to market
and sold it for a five dollar gold coin which he saved instead of spending. Later he bought a team of horses and began building railbeds for the Southern Railway. The Southern Railway had been formed in 1894 from some
Photo of the original house at 4402 Boonsboro Road, owned by Russell and Lilian Thurmond 1907–1920. The previous owner, James Holmes, was living here when this picture was taken in 1906. It appears that Holmes built the house around 1902–1903, even though the style is older than one might expect for that date. There has been a house in the vicinity of this location since at least 1843, when Thomas Wilkins owned the property.
28 LYNCH’S FERRY