Early Doctors
This was extracted from DeBow's Review
Dr. David Phelps was the
first physician, and amongstthe earliest settlers, coming here in May, 1807,
from Kentucky. He practised medicine forty-one years, and died in Harrisonburg
10th August, 1829, in the 63d year of his age.
Dr. Dodridge practised here as early as 1815.
Dr. - Ingersoll practised here about the same time, and was
drowned in 1817, in attempting to swim across Turkey Creek, when it was very
high and dangerous, owing to heavy rains.
Dr. Trahern, 1818
Dr. Bojohn, a German, 1820
Dr. Mongin, 1820
Dr. Foster, 1818
Dr. James McBride Thompson,
1819. Dr. Thompson was a successful practitioner, comining from the
State of Georgia. He died at Columbia, on the Ouachitta, in 1842-3.
Dr. Sorden, 1823, from Delaware.
Dr. Nuttall, from Kentucky,
1825
Dr. H. J. Peck, from Kentucky, 1828.
Dr. Clarendon Peck, firom Kentucky, 1835,
died on the Island, August, 1837, much regretted. Dr. P. was an enthusiastic
botanist, and devoted much of his time and labor to the investigation of the
indigenous botany of this country.
Dr. James Holliday, who
now practises his profession in Harrisonburg, is worthy of mention in this place.
He was born in Virginia, in 1786, where he was reared and educated, completing
his medical education in the University of Pennsylvania. He has been practising
medicine for forty years, the last sixteen of them in Mississippi and this state.
He settled here in 1839, and for the space of ten years has devoted a large
share of his time to the study and investigation of' thle geology and mineralogy
of the parish.