History

George Sutherland

     George Sutherland was born in England in 1862. His family immigrated to Utah the next year.  He graduated from Brigham Young Academy in 1881, then passed the bar after studying for a year at University of Michigan School of Law.  He initially practiced in Provo with his father, then he partnered with Samuel R. Thurman in 1886, to form Thurman & Sutherland.  William King joined the firm two years later. 

Each man enjoyed brilliant legal and political careers.  Sutherland served in the Utah Senate, United States Congress, United States Senate, and United States Supreme Court; Thurman served in the Utah House of Represent-atives and on the Utah Supreme Court. It was Sutherland's association with Thurman and King that laid the professional and personal foundation for his remarkable adult life.

Samuel R. Thurman

     Samuel R. Thurman was Sutherland’s and King’s elder by 13 years.  He was born in 1850 in Kentucky, immigrating to Utah at age twenty.  Thurman studied at Brigham Young Academy and Deseret University (now the University of Utah.) 

In 1880, he graduated from the University of Michigan Law School.  After practicing in Utah County for six years, he and Sutherland founded the partnership Thurman & Sutherland.  Two years later, they added William H. King and formed Thurman, Sutherland & King.  Thurman served from 1890 to 1892 on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1893, Thurman formed the firm Thurman & Wedgewood, which moved to Salt Lake City in 1906.

Always active politically, Thurman served as  mayor of Lehi in 1877, when he was 27 years old.  From 1893 to 1896, he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Territory of Utah.  Thurman was a member of the Constitutional Convention and saw to it that women’s suffrage was included in the 1895 Constitution.  From 1882 to 1890, he served in the Utah Territory Legislature.  During this time, he also acted as Chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee.  In 1888, he was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress from the Territory of Utah.

In 1917, Thurman was appointed as a Justice of the Utah Supreme Court.  He served as Chief Justice from 1927 to 1929.  Justice Thurman was known for his keen sense of humor and marked intellectual abilities.  He died on July 12, 1941 in Salt Lake City.

William Henry King

     William Henry King was a law partner of George Sutherland and Samuel R. Thurman and was an accomplished politician.  Born in Fillmore in 1863, he attended Brigham Young Academy with Sutherland, then attended the University of Utah.  After serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Great Britain from 1880 to 1883, he was elected to various offices in Fillmore and in Millard County.  He then graduated from the University of Michigan Law School and joined Thurman & Sutherland in 1888, creating the firm Thurman, Sutherland & King.

He became a member of the Territorial Council in 1891 and acted as Council President from 1894 to 1896.  He then served as an Associate Justice of the Utah Supreme Court.  Running as a Democrat, he lost the 1900 Congressional race to George Sutherland.  However,  he defeated Sutherland in the United States Senate race in 1916, and was reelected in 1922, 1928 and 1934.

In 1937 King was a senior Democrat in the Senate when President Roosevelt attempted to increase the size of the Supreme Court.  He was a vociferous opponent of what was known as the court packing plan.  King strongly implored President Roosevelt to abandon the plan before it split the Democratic Party.  After leaving the Senate, he practiced law in Washington, D.C. from 1941 to 1947, when he returned to Salt Lake City, Utah.  He lived there until his death on November 27, 1949.  He is buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.