Walker Web Family Cards - Person Sheet
Name Bathurst Browne Bagby MD
Birth Jun 3, 1879, Stevensville, VA
Death Jul 6, 1951, The Island, VA.
Burial Smyrna Christian Church K&Q Co VA
Father Capt. Alexander Fleet Bagby (1840-1915)
Mother Fannie Singleton Walker (1844-1935)
Misc. Notes
Was a doctor in Walkerton for some years and served both Whites and Negroes. Ben Walker tells a story about Bathurst on the last Sunday before he left practice in Walkerton: “Bathurst makes out that he goes to the colored churches to give health talks, but I know better. He goes to get business and to collect what is owning him. He took me over to Third Union the Sunday before he left Walkerton. The church was full of people who were happy after eatiing a big dinner. After several songs, scripture reading and prayer by the pastor, Bathurst preached his sermon. He took as his text Romans, Thirteenth Chapter and eighth verse, ‘Owe Thou No Man Anything!’ He said as a closing sentence that God will forgive you for lying, for stealing, for adultery, even for murder, but the Bible doesn’t say a word about forgiving you for not paying your debts. If you don’t pay what you owe, you will go straight to hell. After the sermon Bathurst went down to the door before the parson dismissed the congregation, and stayed there with his pen and receipt book in one hand and his pocketbook in the other. And evey man and woman in that church who owed him paid him that day. They were afraid not to!” Bathurst comment to this was that “Ben has told this story so often that many people believe it, and I sometimes think Ben believes it himself, for I did collect many debts that day. But Ben could not have heardwhat I said for he sat in the buggy all during the service, and the buggy was over one hundred yards from the church. But you can see that he does have a good imagination.35“
In spite of ill health such is the determination and mental strength of Dr. Bathurst Brown Bagby of West Point that he has been able to accomplish a great deal for his profession and in behalf of suffering humanity, and is engaged in a general proxtive, which, however, has to be somewhat limited. For twenty years he has been a suffered from the great White Plague, but by care and obedience to the lase governing the treatment of this disease he has continued in his calling, and is one of the most useful members o his home community. Doctor Bagby was born at Stevensville, King and Queen County, Virginia.30
Attended the public schools of Tappahannock, Eastern High School, Washington City, and the medical department of Columbia University, from which he was graduated in 1904, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. During 1902 and 1903 he was sent by the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., to the United States Marine Hospital, Fort Stanton, New Mexico, to do nine months, and upon his return to Virginia began the practice of his profession at Walkerton, where he remained for three years. His health had begun to fail, and he went back to New Mexico, and was at Corrizozo for a year, and then once more came back to Virginia and entered upon his practive, establishing himself at WestPoint. He was the first vice president of the Medical Society of Virginia, in 1906, being the youngest man ever elected to that office, this honor being bestowed upon him because of the fact that he was the first physician to find hookworm in Virginia. In 1914 he was elected president of the Virginia State Public HEalth Society. Although he offered his services to the Governmnet in 1917, he was rejected on account of ill health. He is a member of the American Medical Association, and is much interested in the progress made in every branch of his calling. In his patience, under affliction, his desire to be of benefit to others, and his public-spirit, Doctor Bagby sets an example others would do well to follow, and has won and holds the respect and high esteem of those with whom he is associated in both professional and civic activities. For many years after the Mann Prohibition law was passed West Point remained wet and left the five counties northeast of that town flooded with whiskey. It was chiefly through Doctor Bagby’s influence and woth that West Point voted dry. It was almost entirely through his influence also that West Point was the first town in the state to rid itself of malaria, typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera infantum andintestinal worms. The American Medical Journal of April 7, 1923, page 1005, in an editorial commended his work in West Point.36
Spouses
1 Alpha C. Johnson
Birth Jan 16, 1882, Woodville, VA.
Death 1966
Burial Smyrna Christian Church K&Q Co VA
Father Silas B. Johnson
Mother Ida Menefee
Marriage Dec 28, 1904
Children Bathurst Browne (1913-)
Richard A (1920-)
Last Modified Jun 22, 2008 Created Sep 25, 2018 using Reunion for Macintosh