Early Doctors
| EARLY DOCTORS |
| Page 165 The early doctors, like the circuit riders, covered a large territory and their monetary reward was small. Unfortunately the names of most of these faithful men are lost. The first doctor in this county was Benjamin Brown who came in 1805 and lived at Brownsville where he died in 1848. Dr. Brown had an extensive practice which extended as far up as the forks of Sandy and on both sides of the Ohio River. In fact, the territory that he covered was larger than two or three of the present counties. The next doctors in order of time were Henry Hampton who came from Fauquier County, Virginia, about the same time that Dr. Brown came, and lived on he farm which included the land on which Marshall College is now located, and William Paine, son of the school teacher, who in 1817 bought the farm just east of 24th Street. Dr. Patrick Talbott is mentioned as early as 1833 and Dr. John Seashols who lived in Barboursville was named jail physician in 1836. He afterwards married the widow Lucretia Creth Love. Page 166 Dr. Henry B. Maupin, uncle of our townsman, Albert B. Maupin, was a graduate from a medical school in Philadelphia in the early 1840's and in 1846 was a surgeon in the militia. He served in the General Assembly and had an apothecary ship at Barboursville during the Civil War. He met an accidental death in 1865 when he was caught between a steamboat and the wharfboat at Guyandotte. Dr. P. H. McCullough, a graduate of Jefferson Medical College came to the county in 1840 and engaged in active practice. He moved to the present site of Huntington in 1862 and after the war served in the Legislature. He retired from active practice in 1888 and died in 1892. Dr. Alexander M. MacCorkle, a second cousin of Governor W. A. MacCorkle, came from Rockbridge County, Virginia in the early 1840's. He practiced for many years in Guyandotte and owned the MacCorkle House in that village. This hotel was burned in 1861 and he doctor moved in the county and lived in the neighborhood of Barboursville. His second wife was the widow Hanley and they are both buried in the Yates Graveyard near Ona. Dr. William A. Jenkins graduated in the early 1850's from Jefferson Medical College and practiced medicine in St. Louis in 1852-54, and then returned to Greenbottom. At the outbreak of the war he became a surgeon in the Confederate Army. Dr. Girard C. Ricketts a graduate of Jefferson Medical College, who died in 1859, a comparatively young man, lived at Guyandotte and was for some twenty years an outstanding physician in the community. Drs. Thomas J. and John N. Buffington lived in the neighborhood of Guyandotte and practiced medicine prior to the war but Dr. J. N. Buffington moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana at an early date. Dr. J. H. Rouse came to Guyandotte just before the Civil War and practiced medicine there until 1862 when he joined the Federal Army. For a time he was in the drug business under the firm name of Rouse and Ingham. Dr. J. H. Hoof practiced medicine in the county during the period of the Civil War. Dr. Bennett Clay Vinson, who was born in Tennessee but was educated in the Medical College at St. Louis, moved to this county and settled at Mud River Bridge, now Milton, and lived there more than a quarter of a century. He married Mary Simmons who still Page 167 lives in the city of Huntington now past ninety years of age. Dr. Vinson was elected to the first Legislature under the Constitution of 1872. It is interesting to note that four doctors were enlisted men in the Border Rangers, viz: James Hereford, William Jenkins, A. B. McGinnis, and Robert Timms. Dr. David W. Dabney located in Guyandotte where he died in 1903. He practiced medicine in that community for a quarter of a century and was an outstanding and respectable citizen. In the last year of his life there was a smallpox epidemic and Dr. Dabney worked night and day in combating the dread disease. He made a long horseback trip to see a patient, contracted pneumonia and died. Dr. John W. Brown came to Guyandotte in 1880 from North Carolina and was engaged in practice there some twenty years. He was a gentleman of the old school and had many friends. At the close of the civil War Dr. A. B. McGinnis who had been in the Confederate service began the practice of medicine in the county and Dr. Frank Murphy, father of James Murphy of Guyandotte, Drs. C. D. and Randolph Moss, and W. H. Bowles, who was a Confederate veteran, came to the county. They were followed a little later by Dr. A. J. Beardsley, a Union soldier who came in 1870. After the city of Huntington was incorporated the business in the community began to center there and among the first doctors in the new city were J. O. Wall, George Rowland, Thomas Welsh, E. T. Saunders, M. L. Mayo, D. D. Wetzel, and E. S. Buffington and John D. Myers, the last two being Confederate veterans. In the group which followed these gentlemen were Drs. C. R. Enslow, Thomas J. Prichard, W. D. Rowe, R. E. Vickers, C. C. Hogg, R. H. Pepper, J. L. Stump, Thos. F. Stuart, A. C. Burns, H. A. Brandebury, J. E. Rader and E. V. Grover, and following these came the men who are still active. Among the later doctors who had a county practice were H. V. Sands who lived in Union District, J. W. Holstein who lived at Barboursville, A. Herrenkohl of Union Ridge, P. H. Swann of Barboursville, and more recently L. C. Morrison at Milton. |
| CABELL COUNTY ANNALS AND FAMILIES by George Selden
Wallace MCMXXXV GARRETT & MASSIE, PUBLISHERS, RICHMOND ©, 1935 by Frances G. Wallace |
