Gates P. Thruston

Gates P. Thruston (1835-1912) was an American Civil War veteran, lawyer and businessman. Born in Ohio, he served in the Union Army during the war and started a legal practise in Nashville, Tennessee in the postbellum era. He served as the president of the State Insurance Company. He was an amateur archeologist, and the author of several books about Native American mounds and artifacts. His collection is held at the Tennessee State Museum.

Early life
Gates P. Thruston was born on June 11, 1835, in Dayton, Ohio. His paternal grandfather, Buckner Thruston, was a United States Senator.

Thurston graduated as a valectorian with a Doctor of Humane Letters in Archeology and Literature from Miami University in 1855. He received a law degree from the Cincinnati Law School.

During the American Civil War of 1861-1865, he served in the 1st Ohio Infantry of the Union Army. He took part in the Battle of Chickamauga at Snodgrass Hill on September 20, 1863.

Career
After the war, Thruston became a lawyer in Nashville, Tennessee. He retired from legal practise in 1878. Two years later, in 1880, he was appointed as the president of the State Insurance Company.

Thruston served as the vice president of the Tennessee Historical Society. An amateur archaeologist, Thruston dug at Noel Farm in Nashville, where he found Native American artifacts, and he started a collection. He also dug at Pompei in Italy. In 1890, he published his first book privately. Entitled The Antiquities of Tennessee and the Adjacent States, it was reviewed in American Anthropologist, the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association. When it was republished for commercial use in 1897, it was reviewed in Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Thurston went on to write several other books.

Additionally, Thruston was a collector of medals and coins for which he won an award at the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Thruston was a commissioner of the Watkins Institute. He was also the president of the Nashville Art Association. Additionally, he served on the board of trustees of the University of Nashville.

Personal life, death and legacy
Thruston was married twice. He married his first wife, Ida Hamilton, the daughter of James M. Hamilton, in December 1865. In 1894, he married Fanny Dorman. He had a son, Gates Thruston, Jr., who predeceased him.

Thruston died on December 9, 1912, in Nashville, Tennessee. His funeral was conducted by a Presbyterian minister; pall-bearers included James Hampton Kirkland and Robert Ewing, and he was buried at the Mount Olivet Cemetery.

His collection of Native American artifacts, which he had donated to Vanderbilt University in 1907, has been exhibited at the Tennessee State Museum since 1986. A book about the collection authored by Stephen D. Cox, the curator of cultural history at the museum, was published in 1985.