For Posterity... and Grimes County Doctors: Part Six

This group was photographed standing in front of Dr. Kilpatrick's Drug Store on Washington Avenue, around 1880. The handsome tall fellow in the middle with the mustache is Dr. A. R. Kilpatrick. He came to Texas in 1861, trying to find a safe enclave from the Northern aggression, and brought all of his family, some twenty persons, and 162 slaves with him. He is a distant cousin and my people (Cushman side) came from his neighborhood in Louisiana to Texas 40 years after. Dr. Kilpatrick was not only a historian but a writer for the science journals of the day, such as Dr. John Bell's Medical Journal in Philadelphia, starting as a young man in 1838.

The following is a directory of sorts. I'm sure its not complete, but perhaps it is a good start in listing the earliest doctors of this area, including Washington on the Brazos, Navasota and Anderson.

Dr. Charles Ballinger Stewart, Member of first Convention 1832, ’33, Secretary to Mexican Supreme Court, 1834, member of Convention at Brazoria 1834, Secretary to Provisional Governor Smith 1835, FIRST to sign Declaration of Independence, 2nd Lieutenant Gov., helped write Constitution, Republic of Texas Army, bilingual, interpreter during capture of Santa Anna, designed Texas Flag adopted 1839, Delegate to Convention discussing Annexation 1845, many terms as State Legislature, lived in Montgomery and Navasota. Died 1885.

Dr. Anson Jones: Surgeon, 2nd Regiment, Battle of San Jacinto, last Pres TX, architect of annexation. (Lived at Washington on the Brazos.)

Dr. James B. Miller: came to Texas in 1836, President during the formation, Secretary of Treasury, ran for Governor. (Washington on the Brazos)

Dr. J. W. Lockhart: Came to Texas in 1839. Author, doctor, early day Indian negotiator. “Being a doctor meant something in those days. It meant long hard rides on horseback, with perhaps all the medicine in that part of the country stowed in one’s saddle bags. It meant treatment of people who knew little about care of themselves or sanitary matters. It meant homespun nursing, the care of the unlettered whites and of superstitious blacks. It meant little pay and long waits for that pay. Often Dr. Lockhart would be called on to follow a black man into the black night- perhaps fifteen miles, often twenty. One night when he could scarce see his hand before his face, he followed for fifteen miles through river bottoms the elusive lead of a white horse.” (Dr. Lockhart lived in Washington on the Brazos and later Chappell Hill.)

Benjamin Briggs Goodrich: Arrived in 1833. Served in Alabama Legislature, Delegate San Felipe 1835, and Washington on the Brazos, signor Texas Declaration of Independence, co-author of Texas Constitution, probably first doctor in Grimes County.

*Dr. Robert Caldwell Neblett: Came in 1840. First doctor in Navasota area.

Dr. Richard Fox Brenham. The City of Brenham was named for Dr. Richard Fox Brenham, soldier of fortune, volunteer in the Mier Expedition, imprisoned at Salado, killed when he led the charge to escape in 1843.

The 1850 Grimes County Census: Showed these doctors to be residents of Anderson: D. C. Dickson, E. W. Belding, Enoch Jones(Dentist), and Edmund Tucker.

1859 According to Dr. Kilpatrick the first doctor in Navasota was Dr. Armitage in 1859. I suppose he discounted Dr. Neblett as he did not live right in the town proper.

Dr. McFall, Dr. Alexander Waugh, and *Dr. Edward Arrel Pye came right after. Pye served in the Fourth Tx Inf, CSA, lost own son, his assistant, in the Yellow Fever epidemic.

1860 *Dr. David Alexander Jameson (fell victim to Yellow Fever while in Galveston, but survived) came to Navasota about 1863, fought Yellow Fever in quarantine camp in Calvert. Physician and surgeon for the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. Moved to Millican 1866 - 1884. County Health Officer, Brazos county; rode a circuit in the Brazos plantation bottom region, often gone for weeks. Camp Physician at convict camps in Conroe. 1884, returned to Navasota. Died in 1903

1861 Dr. Pryor H. Smith, Built Navasota's magnificent "P. A. Smith Hotel," on Railroad St., died in 1867 fighting Yellow Fever.

1864 *J. N. Baylor, 1st Lt. Surgeon, who ran a Civil War Hospital in Navasota. Covered forty miles square. Known to have stayed and fought the Yellow Fever epidemic valiantly. Elder, Presb Church, Died 1903.

1866 T. Newsom, ?. Beasseley d. 1867 YF, J. Hamilton Jones d. 1867 YF, Paul Smith d. 1867 YF, Ed Cade, J. P. Barnett , also Rx, Hightower, also Rx,

*Andrew Robert Kilpatrick : Active Mason, medical journalist, meteorologist, historian, memb. State Medical Asso., married four times!

1867 Dr. J. H. Kerr worked during Yellow Fever epidemic, J. W. Hill, also Rx

Also died of yellow Fever: Dr. A. Campbell, Dr. J. W. Russell.

1870 Dr. J. T. Montgomery

1871 Alexander G. Beaumont,

1876 Dr. William Goodrich

1878 *Dr. Alfred Huntington Ketchum: “Considered one of the most successful physicians in South Texas.” Graduate from Alabama Medical College with honors, came to “Old Washington” in 1874. Immune to Yellow Fever because he had the disease as a youth. Considered an expert on the disease. Moved to Navasota as Old Washington died out, in 1878. Director of First National bank, Vice President of the Navasota Telephone Company, and a druggist as well. Appointed as a Major and Surgeon of the Texas Volunteer Guards, in 1880, by Governor O. M. Roberts. In 1898, Texas health officers equipped him with a train to swiftly access various population centers during Yellow Fever breakout.

1885 *J. H. Neal: Came to Old Washington in 1866. The graduated from the Medical College of Alabama in 1877. Moved to Navasota in 1885. Died 1924.

A first-hand second opinion of early Texas doctors: Part Four

Those of you who have read a lot of this blog know that I love to quote a Washington County doctor when writing about the Republic days. Dr. John W. Lockhart is another early leader in the region that was also one of our local doctors. He was also a passionate writer, and probably would have been a blogger had he been born in this era. Dr. Lockhart wrote some enlightening passages about the status of the early Texas doctor, which explains this common feature, that of physician-politician, of Republic of Texas doctors.

Evidently, the chasm was so great between the ignorant and unschooled and the learned and degreed, that an educated man was something of a god. I’ll let Dr. Lockhart explain in his own words…

“It was a long way to a medical college then, and no conveyances except horse-back and long stage rides, which consumed many days. It was almost an impossibility for a man to moderate circumstances to obtain a degree. But when he did, and settled in the town or little village, or the crossroads, he was a power in the land. The words which fell from his lips were like so many oracles. He was always profuse in medical terms. These not being understood by the people, made him a greater genius. The old ladies flocked about him to catch the wise words he uttered.

He was considered the biggest man in the neighborhood, not excepting the circuit rider. He had no one to fear, except the crossroad politician; and he could always be bribed with a few bitters, which the doctor knew exactly how to make. Once in his good graces, the doctor could bleed and blister to his heart’s content…

… It was wonderful to see the influence the oracle in the neighborhood had with the people. In all cases of law he was consulted; and to add importance to his opinion, he kept a copy of the decisions of the lower court on hand. The part that appertained to the practice of the justice court was well worn from the numerous references made when settling questions arising in the neighborhood. What he said in the premises was regarded as almost supernatural.

His opinion was sought with equal regard to medicine, religion, astronomy, astrology, and all things appertaining to science. But his greatest genius ran in the way of politics. No man need run for office in the precinct, unless he first obtained the doctor’s consent, or his assistance. To do otherwise, would be to court certain defeat. However, that other wise man of the precinct who succeeded in getting himself elected justice of the peace, was a man to be reckoned with- the only man the doctor need fear.”

Dr. Lockhart went down in local history as a great benefactor of his community, and was seemingly loved and trusted by all and deserved that trust, but even he had trouble treating those whose faith was built on superstition…

“Negroes objected to taking calomel and castor oil more than any medicine. The former they believed was made from the bones of dead people ground to powder, and the latter they believed to be the grease made from the bodies of the dead. These facts were the actual truth to them; and in some instances, force had to be resorted to, to make them swallow it.”

Dr. Lockhart also wrote of the struggle with ye age old wives tales…

“…In Texas- for instance, in the country where there were no doctors, the lady of the house had to do all the doctoring; and would resort to barks, weeds, and all things thought to have medicinal properties. For instance, she substituted the inner bark of the ash for action on the liver and bowels. This she prepared by cutting off the rough exterior bark, using the inner white portion. This she boiled- throwing out the fibre, and when the juice had simmered to the consistency of tar, it was mixed with flour and rolled into pills.”

I’ll offer this one last quote from the good doctor, who won my heart with such balanced skepticism, on all sides... here he comments on a doctor's convention, and he seemed to touch on a timeless argument…:)

“Many specific papers were read before this body which were a credit to the authors and the profession. Diseases were discussed, and their causes and cures. The germ theory also had its advocates. Microbes, bacilli, and the like were ably handled; and if the doctors do not quit finding so many things existing in the air we breathe, and the food we eat and the water we drink, they will starve this nation out.”

[From: SIXTY YEARS ON THE BRAZOS]

Not much has changed and will not, whenever we match man’s capacity against the handiwork of an Infinite God.

I want you to know about the next generation of doctors that flooded into Grimes County after the Civil war, only to be almost decimated by a Yellow Fever epidemic in 1867.

Next time… on the Navasota Current.

Navasota Doctors: The very early days: Part Three

The early Texas doctor, this is one of a collection of life-sized portraits I painted for the Star of the Republic Museum at Washington on the Brazos.


Wow, I was writing about our wonderful medical history here in Navasota when several music events kind of blew all that out like a blue Norther in a chicken coup. I think it is too late to gather all the chicks and put them back in… but I do want to pursue this subject, for posterity.

Like I said before, nobody has ever put down the story. Or asked the questions. For a pretty small town Navasota had a bunch of physicians. Why or how come so many? I am fortunate enough to have several great sources to tell you about our pioneer doctors, who they were and some wonderful anecdotes about them… So we will approach them like a doctor would, chronologically. In past segments we have learned about the very first doctors in Texas, about Cabeza de Vaca and La Salle’s murderous surgeon Liotot… Thank goodness some real physicians finally showed up! These three men were our doctors and leaders during the Republic of Texas days.

Benjamin Briggs Goodrich. B. B. Goodrich was perhaps one of the most prominent men in Grimes County for many years. But not because he was a doctor. Goodrich was one of the earliest pioneers to settle here, and became a political leader from the very beginning.

Born in 1799, B. B. Goodrich graduated from medical school in Baltimore and then migrated south, with short stays in Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama where he was soon elected to the State Legislature. He and his younger brother John, known as the “bee hunter,” finally found Texas in 1833, settling in Eureka, later to be combined with Fanthorp and renamed Anderson. John Goodrich was one of the men who made Texas forever famous when he died at the Alamo.

B. B. Goodrich served early Texas as a delegate to the Consultation in 1835, and the Convention at Washington on the Brazos in 1836. He was a signor of the Declaration of Independence. He also helped to write the Republic of Texas Constitution. Later he was instrumental in helping to select the town site of Anderson as the County seat for the new County of Grimes in 1846 when it was separated from Montgomery County.


Dr. Robert Caldwell Neblett. Born in Virginia in 1795, his early training was in carpentry. Robert abandoned this vocation and took up going to school and playing the violin. His father burned the violin and sent him to work. Robert joined the Virginia Militia instead. At age seventeen he volunteered and ended up in the War of 1812, where he rose to the rank of Sergeant Major. After the war he taught school, then in 1818 decided to attend medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. After he graduated, he started practicing in Clarksville, Tennessee. From there he moved to Wayne County, Mississippi where he married Marie Poe in 1825.

He kept moving west. He and his family settled in Louisiana, and there he farmed and practiced medicine and went into merchandising at Neblett’s Bluff, and this town was named after him.

But by 1840, Dr. Neblett arrived in Texas, very near the present town of Navasota. Here he “planted his ebenezer” and continued to use all the talents he had developed to that date. At that time, the other doctors were engrossed in political affairs, and Dr. Neblett served the region between the San Jacinto and Brazos rivers! He helped to organize one of the first schools, the Masonic Collegiate Institute, in Anderson in 1843. He was a charter member of the Orphan’s Friend Lodge.

Medical supplies were scarce and costly, and Neblett carried the only medicine known to exist within hundreds of miles in his saddle bags; calomel and quinine. He had no anesthesia, not even chloroform. Patients often could not be carried, and he made many house calls, travelling the country on horseback. His most frequent foes besides ignorance and superstition were infection and Malaria. One of the more interesting superstitions he ran into was the use of a native root called the Mandenke, or May Apple root. Its root grew into a shape not unlike a man, and it had a fork which looked like legs. Users believed that they should take a part of the root from the corresponding part of their own body which was ailing, and make a tea from it and consume it.

Dr. Neblett was elected into the Texas Legislature in 1855. Neblett helped to bring St. Paul’s Episcopal College to Anderson in 1861. Dr. Neblett was active serving his community until 1970, and died in 1871. The U. S. Government placed a marker on his grave at the Orphan’s Lodge Cemetery recognizing his bravery in the War of 1812.

David Catchings Dickson. D. C. Dickson was another early doctor from Anderson that fell into a leadership role in Texas very quickly. After his first wife died in Mississippi, he married her younger sister and came to Texas in 1841. Dickson was the first doctor to open a practice in Alta Mira, a village west of present day Anderson. He was soon elected as the Justice of the Peace. He helped to found the Orphan’s Friend Masonic Lodge in Anderson. He was elected as a Representative to the State Legislature in 1846, where he served four terms. In 1851, he was elected the Speaker of the House. In 1853 he was elected as Lieutenant Governor. In 1855 he became snared in a political strategy that backfired when he announced his candidacy for the office of Governor, challenging then Governor Pease. Pease replaced him on his ticket and he then was defeated.

D. C. Dickson represented Grimes County in the Texas State Senate during the Civil War. Perhaps his most heroic challenge was while working for the Texas Prison system. After the war, he was appointed as the financial agent of the Huntsville Penitentiary. When the Yellow Fever epidemic broke out in 1867, he stayed at his post and provided essential care to the guards and inmates during this deadly time. His own son died during epidemic, but he was credited with continuing his fight against the disease, which raged in the unhealthy environment inside the walls. He served out his remaining years assisting his brother Lawrence here in Grimes County as Deputy Clerk. He died in 1880.

Most of this was taken from Blair’s History of Grimes County, pub 1930, and The Medicine Man in Texas, 1930.