Category Archives: Cabinet cards

“The gospel of work”: Dr. Alexander Douglas McConachie

I’ve so far documented nine cabinet card photographs of dentists and physicians who studied and/or practiced in Baltimore.

Alexander Douglas McConachie (1864-1951)  number ten, is the only one not from the United States.

Born in Woodstock, Oxford, Ontario, Canada to Scots immigrants William and Elspeth (Shand) McConachie, Alexander came to Baltimore to study dental surgery and medicine in 1886.

He was part of the University of Maryland Department of Dental Surgery graduating class of 1888, along with Leonidas Wilson Davis and Frank Ryland Steel.

Dr. McConachie went on to study medicine at the University of Maryland and earned an MD there in 1890. He did post-graduate work at Johns Hopkins, and then pursued his medical studies in Europe.

During World War I, Dr. McConachie served in the Army Medical Corps in Orleans, France.

He was president of the Medical Alumni Association of the University of Maryland for 1923-1924, and a professor on the faculty of the Maryland Medical College.

McConachie settled in Baltimore and in 1898 married into an old Cecil County clan. His wife, Mollie Manly Thomas Drennen, through the Hylands traced her Elkton roots back the 18th century.

According to a Daughters of the American Revolution Lineage Book, Mrs. McConachie was descended through her mother, Ann Elizabeth Worrall Manly, from a Lt. John Hyland, born in Kent County, Maryland, in 1746.

After his marriage, Dr, McConachie and his wife settled on Charles Street, in Baltimore, where they lived for the rest of their lives. McConachie, who specialized in disorders of the ear, nose and throat, had his practice at the same address for 50 years.

Dr. McConachie  took his Presbyterian Protestantism seriously. When asked for his definition of success, he told the authors of Men of Mark of Maryland:

“Being content and happy in doing my daily duty as it arises, I never feel the sting of failure, but if I have failed (according to the judgment of others), I should say that I have not succeeded in applying assiduously my gospel, which is a gospel of work, and more work, by which we work out our salvation here and hereafter.”

Fortunately, his gospel did not stop him from enjoying life. An avid sportsman, he loved the new pastime of “motoring” and “hoped to fly.” He liked movies and the theater, and read widely.

The portrait of the young doctor here was taken at the studio of William Ashman, probably as a graduation remembrance in the late 1880s. The National Library of Medicine’s later  portrait of Dr. McConachie shows a handsome man in his confident prime.

He and his wife are buried with his wife’s people in Elkton Cemetery, Cecil County.

The Other Buffham Brother: John Hardiman Buffham

Vintage photograph collectors may have heard of English-born George Richard Buffham (1846-1915), official photographer to the US Naval Academy at Annapolis.

Buffham also had a studio in Baltimore, Maryland, which he ran under the name Buffham Brothers.

This is the other Buffham of Buffham Brothers: John Hardiman Buffham (1855-1940). Like George, John Buffham immigrated to the US from England in the 1870s and settled in Baltimore with his wife, Jessie, and mother, Mary Ann Johnson Buffham.

George and John first appear in the US census records in Baltimore in 1880 as “picture dealers.” They might have been exposed to the business through their father, George Richard Buffham, Sr., who had been a London carver and gilder–probably of frames.

George was apprenticed to a London “spectacle-maker,” and the training in grinding glass lenses must have served as a good background for an understanding of photography.

George Buffham moved to Annapolis and gained the appointment at the Naval Academy sometime between 1890 and 1900. He sold his studio, located at 48 Maryland Avenue, near Prince George Street,  in 1912.

Some of his most famous photos are studio portraits of future admirals Chester W. Nimitz,  Harold Rainsford  Stark and Wat Tyler Cluverius as  US Naval Academy cadets.

Buffham photographed many officers, Academy athletic teams, graduating class groups, as well as members of the Maryland General Assembly, and outdoor scenes of Annapolis and the Academy. The Maryland State Archives and the Library of Congress each hold small collections of his photographs.

While George focused on photography, John Hardiman Buffham gravitated toward business, eventually working as a representative of Baltimore’s Resinol Company. The company made cremes and soaps developed by Dr. Merville Hamilton Carter in his private practice. Buffham, who divided his time between Baltimore and England, became the company’s representative in London.

John died in London in 1940, leaving an estate of nearly £6,000 to his two daughters, Edith Mary (Buffham) Varney and Jessie Mabel (Buffham) Curry.

While George and John both kept a substantial presence in England, a third brother, carpenter Thomas Henry Buffham (1852-1921) settled in Port Chester, Westchester County, New York, for good. His descendants became solidly American, while John’s remained in England.

This cabinet card photograph lists the studio’s address at 116 South Broadway, Baltimore, a location that Kelbaugh’s Directory of Maryland Photographers says Buffham occupied between 1880 and 1889.

George Buffham’s bust portrait of John takes full advantage of John’s dark good looks, penetrating eyes, strikingly smooth, pale complexion and high forehead. Leaning dramatically toward the camera, John’s confident gaze compels the viewer to acknowledge and admire him.

First National Bank, Cumberland by T. L. Darnell

Like a less attractive relation, the old First National Bank building, located at Baltimore and George streets in Cumberland, pictured here, is often overlooked in favor of its famous, Bruce Price-designed neighbor–the Second National Bank building at Baltimore and Liberty streets.

Considerable confusion exists because of the history of the reorganization of various banks in Cumberland over the centuries. I’m not  going to attempt to reconstruct this history here beyond its direct relevance to the two buildings.

These dates are based on the 1970s Allegany County Historic Site Inventory for the Maryland Historic Trust and Allegany County, A Pictorial History, by Lee G. Schwartz, Albert L. Feldstein and Joan H. Baldwin (Donning: Virginia Beach, Va., 1980):

  • The Cumberland Bank of Allegany was founded in 1812 and chartered as the First National Bank of Cumberland in 1864. It first located at Baltimore and George in 1858 (Pictorial, 91).
  • Pictured here, the First National Bank building  at Baltimore and George was built ca. 1889-1890 from a design by a forgotten architect. Although blurred, the date on this cabinet card photograph appears to be 1889. In 1912, the bank’s facade was either altered beyond recognition or a new building, which still exists, was built upon the same location. Further evidence of our building’s date of construction is the absence in this photo of the old YMCA building to its right, which is clearly visible in later photographs. According to Schwartz, et. al., the old YMCA building was built about 1893 as a three-story structure; two more stories were added in 1910 (Pictorial, 40). An article focusing on changes in this block dates the old YMCA building to 1894. I think today the newer bank building at Baltimore and George is occupied by the First Peoples Community Federal Credit Union.
  • Bruce Price designed the more ornate and famous Second National Bank building at Baltimore and Liberty. According to Schwartz, et. al., the Second National Bank of Cumberland was chartered in 1865 and moved to Baltimore and Liberty in 1868 (Pictorial, 24). Some sources give 1888 as the Price building’s origin; others ca. 1893. A historic marker on this building confusingly identifies it as the First National Bank, because in 1963 Second National merged with First National to become First National Bank and Trust Company. This  building exhibits the distinctive “round-arched Romanesque style” and “steep-gabled wall dormer” described in its survey for the Historic Site Inventory  of Allegany County. The Price building at Baltimore and Liberty, on the pedestrian mall, is now occupied by Susquehanna Bank (some sites on the web still say Farmers and Merchants Bank).

Now back to our photograph. During this period, according to Ross Kelbaugh’s Directory of Maryland Photographers,  the studio of Thomas L. Darnell (1825-1908) was located at 96 Baltimore Street in Cumberland, and I’ve found other Darnell cabinet cards with the location 106 Baltimore Street.

Kelbaugh dates cards that include “and Son” to 1880-1901, but this card, dated 1889, doesn’t fit that schema. We know the photograph depicts a building ca. 1889-1893, so more work on Darnell’s business history remains to be done.

Darnell includes a few figures to add life and scale to the scene, which captured the building’s facade with the sun full upon it. Only slight shadows in casement corners pick out the lines of the high, handsome, leaded double-height windows.

Five Medical Sons of the Southland

This cabinet card photograph by Blessing & Co. (John P. Blessing and Henry Fenge)  is autographed by five young men who all turned out to be graduates of the Baltimore College of Physicians and Surgeons, class of 1888.

Perhaps they had their portrait taken as a parting remembrance of their time together.
All five are mentioned in a Baltimore Sun article of 16 March 1888 about the school’s commencement ceremonies at Ford’s Opera House in Baltimore: William Rish Lowman from South Carolina; Harris Miller Branham and Peyton H. Keaton from Georgia. George E. Weber and W. W. Brown are mentioned as special prize-winners in the “graded course,” but their state of origin isn’t given.

For graduating second in his graduating class, Harris Miller Branham (1862-1938) was awarded the Brown Memorial Prize and a year’s residency at Baltimore City Hospital (Peabody College Alumni Directory).

He had come to Baltimore to study medicine after graduating from Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee and teaching for several years.

His parents were Eatonton, Georgia natives Mary Helen Matthews and  Isham Harris Branham (1848-1906), a wealthy Georgia merchant and attorney who attended Emory College in Oxford, Georgia, and  served in the Confederate armed forces during the Civil War.

Young Harris Branham grew up in Fort Valley, Houston County, Georgia, but when he settled down to practice medicine, it was in Brunswick, in Glynn County, Georgia. He and his wife Daisy Tison Branham, are buried in Palmetto Cemetery, Glynn County.

Branham’s identification of the signs of a medical phenomenon called an  “arteriovenous fistula” earned him an entry in the German version of Wikipedia. His observation was dubbed “Branham’s Sign” in his honor;  the story of his medical “eponym” is recounted in a 1985 article in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery by Will C. Sealy.

Read a 1906 biographical sketch of Dr. Branham and family in Georgia: Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Institutions and Persons.

William Rish Lowman was awarded the Erich Prize for finishing third  in his graduating medical class.

Born 3 December 1866 in Lexington County, South Carolina, to Dr. Jacob Walter Lowman (1837-1905) and Lodusky (Rish) Lowman (1839-1929), William was descended, through his mother’s kin, from Jacob Long, who served in Water’s Regiment of South Carolina during the American Revolution.

Like Branham’s father, Lowman’s father served the Confederacy in the war between the states, but whether as a doctor or as a soldier is not clear.

Dr. Jacob Lowman studied medicine at the University of Georgia. After the war, he returned to his country practice. A respected and influential citizen, he was elected to the South Carolina state legislature for Lexington County.

According to family and local history researcher Jim Dugan, William Rish Lowman was a pharmacist as well as a physician, and the proprietor of Lowman Drug Store in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

Dr. Lowman served as a board member and trustee of  Orangeburg’s South Carolina State University. A men’s dormitory, Lowman Hall, was named for him in 1917. The building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places and part of the South Carolina State College Historic District, was completely rehabbed and reopened in 2010 as University administrative offices.

William, his wife Elvira (Izlar) Lowman, and his parents are buried in Sunnyside Cemetery, Orangeburg.

Dr. Peyton Howard Keaton (1863-1927) of Dougherty County, Georgia, was the son of wealthy plantation-owner Benjamin Washington Keaton (b. abt. 1825).

B. W. Keaton had inherited a large portion of land in what became Dougherty County from his father, B. O. Keaton, who died leaving something like 21,000 acres, including dwellings, farm equipment, farm animals, and probably hundreds of slaves. The land appears to have been divided among several sons, including Benjamin W. Keaton.

After the death of B. W. Keaton sometime between 1865 and 1870, Peyton’s mother, Laura Henington or Hemington  Keaton, married a prosperous merchant of Damascus, Early County, Georgia, and Peyton grew up in the house of his stepfather, Thomas Hightower.

Peyton and his friend W. R. Lowman continued their medical studies together at the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital, and Keaton named one of his sons, Lowman Keaton, after his friend.

Keaton died of an apparent accidental overdose of chloroform on 7 December 1927, possibly in Leon County, Florida; records of the location conflict. He is buried in Damascus Cemetery, Old Damascus, Early Co., Georgia.

By all accounts, Dr. Keaton died a wealthy man: Owner of 5,000 acres of land, part-owner of  dry goods store in Blakely, Georgia and a meat market in Damascus, and vice-president of a local bank.

W. W. Brown and George E. Weber present more difficult problems, as their states of origin are not given.

W. W. Brown could have been Dr. William Wiley Brown of Limestone County, Texas, born in Texas to Mississippi transplants Wiley Pickens Brown (1837-1918) and Mary “Molly” Z. (Stephens) Brown (1843-1913).

Cathy McCormick has documented the life of Wiley P. Brown’s family in Groesbeck, Limestone County, Texas, where William Wiley Brown married May Procter (1875-1938) and settled down to practice medicine. Dr. Brown died in an auto accident in 1932 and is buried in Faulkenberry Cemetery, Groesbeck, Limestone Co., Texas, along with William’s parents.

Dr. Brown’s brother, Frank F. Brown, DDS, studied dentisty at the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery.

According to A History of Texas and Texans, Volume Four, Wiley P. Brown was born in Tallahachie County, Mississippi and came to Limestone County in 1849 with his parents, whose roots were in South Carolina.

Dr. Brown shared with Keaton and Lowman the history of a father who served in the Confederate army. Capt. Wiley P. Brown rode with the 20th Texas Cavalry in Arkansas and Indian Territory during the Civil War.

G. E. Weber could have been George Ernest Peter Webber (1872-1930), a Kentucky-born physician who grew up in Missouri, and settled in Morland, Graham County, Kansas with his wife Cora Mather. They are buried in Morland City Cemetery, Graham County, Kansas.

Did they ever see each other again after they settled down? State medical associations routinely appointed delegates to attend the annual conferences of other state medical associations, so it is possible that they encountered each other at such gatherings.

However life separated them later, their group photograph captures a moment when these confident young southern doctors, graduating at the top of their class, formed an affectionate confederacy of five.

Face of a Lonaconing Fleming?

Since writing my previous posts about the McAlpine family of Lonaconing, Maryland, I was able to borrow a copy of The Lonaconing Legacy: Its Cornish and Scottish Sons and Daughters, by Thomas Witwer Richards and Sally Miller Atkinson.

Primarily a genealogy of the authors’ families, the book, published in 2000, offers fascinating glimpses of what life was like for immigrant coal mining families, especially the tight-knit clan of related Peebles, Richards, Loves and McAlpines who lived and worked in Lonaconing during its coal-mining heyday.

Janet Douglas Peebles (1814-1892), widow of Thomas Peebles Sr. (1812-1859), had a brother who came to Lonaconing in 1851. John Douglas “became mine boss with the George’s Creek Coal and Iron Company in 1853,” and then was promoted to Superintendent in 1863 (Legacy, 130).

“Douglas relied upon his Peebles, McAlpine, and Love kinsmen to form the backbone of the company’s work force, and the better jobs were available to them. . . . Family members had job opportunities even in the slowest of times” (Legacy, 130).

Close ties with company management may have made these workers less amenable to labor organizing, minimizing strikes and unrest.

Extended family provided personal support as well, such as living quarters for relations and helping widowed miners with child care.

But besides filling in some of the detail about life in Lonaconing during its coal mining height, the book  includes reproductions of rarely-seen early photographs of family members.

Several photographs of Fleming sisters, especially portraits of Mary Fleming Peebles (1839-1915) wife of Thomas Peebles, Jr. (1836-1911),  in middle age, bear resemblance to the unidentified photograph of the middle-aged woman in the portrait above.

But is the timing right?

According to Kelbaugh’s Directory of Maryland Photographers 1839-1900, Cumberland photographer Thomas L. Darnell used the advertising mark “Darnell and Son” from 1880 to 1901. This doesn’t help us narrow down the photo’s date, but her clothing might.

Her hair still dark and lustrous, the woman in this cabinet card photograph appears to be in her late 30s or 40s. Her dress’ high collar with linen band, and tight, button-decorated bodice reflect 1880s fashion (see Joan Severa, Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion, 1840-1900).

So, if we guess at an 1880s date for this portrait, the subject might have been born in the 1840s. 

Elizabeth Fleming (1848-1909) was born in Denny, Stirlingshire, Scotland. Richards and Atkinson relate that Elizabeth met her future husband, John McAlpine (1845-1914), while sojourning in Lonaconing with her elder sister, Mary Fleming Peebles.

Elizabeth Fleming McAlpine would have been in her late 30s or early 40s at the time of this portrait, and I am sorely tempted to conjecture that she is the subject.

Sally Miller Atkinson, a descendant of this group of related families who has done extensive research on her ancestors,  has looked at the photo, however, and asserts that she does not recognize the woman.

So, without further visual evidence, the mystery persists.

Meet the McAlpines: Unidentified Cabinet Card Photographs from Cumberland, Maryland


In addition to the unidentified house and the portrait of Emily and David McAlpine, the group of  Allegany County, Maryland cabinet card photographs I recently acquired includes five other unidentified portraits.

Card mount styles, props and backgrounds suggest they were taken during the 1880s-1890s. Some of the subjects might be a few of David’s five brothers and their wives: Robert, John, James, Walter, and George, sons of John McAlpine (b. abt. 1821) and Barbara (Bell) McAlpine. All, I believe, were born in Lanarkshire, Scotland.

All except one were taken at the studio of Thomas L. Darnell, Cumberland, who, according to Kelbaugh’s Directory of Maryland Photographers 1839-1900, operated in Cumberland ca. 1870-1900. One mount bears the date 1889.

  • John McAlpine(1845-1914) m. Elizabeth Fleming 1869 in Allegany Co., Md.
  • James McAlpine(1847-1932) m. 1) Jane Fleming; 2) 1892 Elizabeth M. Nichols
  • Robert McAlpine (b. abt. 1849)
  • Walter McAlpine (b. abt. 1854) m. Christina
  • George (b. abt. 1867; may have remained in Scotland)

There was also a sister, Agnes (b. abt. 1863, Lanarkshire, Scotland), who only appears in the 1880 census in Lonaconing. She may have married or died.

Like many others from Scotland, the McAlpines came to Allegany County to work in the coal mines. Many stayed put, but two sons of James and Elizabeth (Nichols) McAlpine—Stephen and Walter— migrated to Cuyahoga County, Ohio.

Other surnames in the tree I’ve constructed include Duckworth, Hardegen, Boughton, Barclay, Butts, Peel, Hausrath and Somerville; Ohio branch surnames include Zoll, Swift, Wyter and Covell.

Recognize any of the folks in these photos? Would love to hear from you.
Gratitude to findagrave.com member Sally Atkinson for her excellent research on James and John McAlpine and their wives and children.

McAlpine Mystery House, Lonaconing?

Along with David McAlpine’s Cumberland, Maryland portrait (see prior post), there were, in this rescued collection, five other portraits of family members, all unidentified, and this cabinet card photograph of a house.

There are two houses directly linked to the Lonaconing McAlpines, and they are on the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties: The James McAlpine House, Knapp’s Meadow, and the McAlpine House on George’s Creek Road.

I’ve looked at photographs of the James McAlpine house from the documentation for its historic status, and this house just doesn’t seem to be a match.

The McAlpine house on George’s Run Road doesn’t look like this house, either.

So, is this house in the Lonaconing area? If so, where is it? Was it ever owned by a McAlpine? And who are the people in the picture?

David McAlpine, Lonaconing Coal Miner

This cabinet card portrait by Thomas L. Darnell (1825-1908) of Cumberland, Maryland, was one of a small group of photographs I recently rescued from an internet auction site. Unfortunately, despite resemblances among the sitters, this is the only one with an identification.

To complicate matters, there were several David McAlpines in Lonaconing. Because of the sitters’ clothing and the style of photograph, I ruled out the younger ones, and tentatively identified David McAlpine as born in Scotland, about 1856. I believe he was one of a family of Scots immigrant coal miners who settled in Lonaconing, Maryland in the late 1860s-early 1870s.

John McAlpine (b. abt. 1821, Scotland) came to Lonaconing with his seven  children, John Jr. (1845-1914), James, David, Walter, Agnes, Robert and George.

According to an obituary and notes on a memorial for David’s brother James McAlpine (1847-1932) their mother was Barbara Bell, and they were related through their mother to Alexander Graham Bell of telephone fame.

If this was David McAlpine’s wedding or engagement portrait, ca. 1885, then his companion would be Emily B. McAlpine (1860-1941).  Emily’s left hand rests against her white dress so as to show off several rings, a common pose in nuptial photographs.

David McAlpine died on 22 March 1899, and is buried in Old Coney Cemetery, Knapp’s Meadow, near Lonaconing. His death and life just prior are a mystery in themselves. According to the Genealogical Society of Allegany County’s “Allegany County Maryland Rural Cemeteries,” his grave marker in Old Coney Cemetery says “Co. B 1st Md. Inf. Span. Am. War.”

The roster of the 1st Maryland Infantry lists him as a private in Company D, but the grave marker reader may easily have mistaken a “D” for a “B.” The troops moved several times between mustering at Belair Md. in May 1898 and disbanding at Camp Mackenzie near Augusta Georgia in February 1899. So David McAlpine died less than a month after returning home to Lonaconing.

His death notice in the Cumberland, Md. Evening Times, obtained through Frostburg State University, makes no mention of his time in the army, saying only that he “had suffered from nervous prostration for the past four years.”

His death notice also mentions that he had served as janitor at the Allegany County Courthouse. This is the sort of political patronage job given to constituents who might have been unable to continue working because of disability.

Was his shattered mental health the result of a trauma such as a mining accident? The investigation continues.

Regardless of how and why he died, David McAlpine left his wife with five young children: Elsie Bell (McAlpine) Carpenter, Alice B. (McAlpine) Hardegen, Allan, Mable Edith (McAlpine) Duckworth, and Hila Madaris (McAlpine) Zimmerman Collett, all born between 1887 and 1895.

Thomas Ludwick Darnell was born near Poolesville in Montgomery County, Maryland, to Fielder Darnell (1798-1858) and Elizabeth  (Young) Darnell. Darnell, or Darnall, was an old, slave-holding Maryland family.According to Hartzler’s Marylanders in the Confederacy, Thomas served  as a private in Company B of the 2nd Maryland Cavalry during the Civil War.

Sometime between 1860, when he was working as a clerk in Washington, DC, and 1870, he settled in Cumberland as a professional photographer; his studio was for many years on Baltimore Street.  Assisted by his daughter Bertie and his son, William, Darnell produced untold numbers of cartes de visite and cabinet cards, as well as stereoviews of the developing coal regions of the Cumberland area.

He retired to Raleigh, North Carolina, several years before his death there in 1908. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Raleigh, North Carolina, along with his wife, Adeline (Bartruff) Darnell, and four of his daughters.

Next up: “McAlpine Mystery House?”

Dentists I Have Not Known: Dr. Ferdinand J. S. Gorgas, MD, DDS

Some of the lots of cabinet card portraits of dentists I’ve recently obtained have included unidentified men. Working off the theory that these individuals may also have been dentists, I started looking through digitized histories of the University of Maryland Dental Department and the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery.

Jackpot. I was able to match this unidentified gentleman to portraits of the founding Dean of the Dental Department of the University of Maryland, Dr. Ferdinand James Samuel Gorgas (1834-1914).

Compare this image to one on page 400 of  University of Maryland 1807-1907: Its History, Influence, Equipment and Characteristics, volume one, by Eugene Fauntleroy Cordell.

By its subject’s dress, my portrait appears to be of earlier date than the published and widely reprinted portrait of the venerated doctor.

Photographer James S. Cummins’ studio is known to have been located at 5 N. Charles Street ca. 1886-1887 (Kelbaugh, Directory of Maryland Photographers 1839-1900). Given that a number of the portraits of dentists I’ve acquired relate to the University of Maryland Dental Department’s graduating class of 1888, it again seems plausible that Gorgas had his portrait taken around that time.

Dr. Gorgas’ biography and ancestry are well and widely known, so there is little need to belabor it here. He was born on 27 July 1835 in Winchester, Virginia to Mary Ann Smith and prosperous tinner and stove dealer John DeLancy Gorgas (b. abt. 1819, Md.); grew up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and attended Dickinson College here; graduated from the pioneering Baltimore College of Dental Surgery in 1855; was appointed Demonstrator there in 1857 and became a full professor in 1860.

Gorgas earned an MD from the University of Maryland in 1863 and served the Union as an assistant surgeon during the Civil War. In 1865, he returned to the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery as Dean, departing in 1882 to become founding Dean of the University of Maryland Dental Department (now the School of Dentistry), a post he held until 1911.

He wrote extensively on dentistry, revising seminal works by pioneer dentist Dr. Chapin Harris many times, and was one of the editors of the American Journal of Dental Science, one of the first professional academic journals on dentistry.

He and his wife, Anna (Swormstedt) Gorgas (1835-1909), had four children, of whom I have identified three: Ellen, Dr. Lawrence D. Gorgas, MD (1861-1924) and Herbert F. Gorgas, DDS (1857-1958). Only their two sons survived to adulthood. Anna, who married Dr. Gorgas in Jefferson County, Indiana in 1855,  was the daughter of Jefferson County, Indiana merchant Lorenzo Dow Swormstedt.

Dr. Gorgas belonged to the Oriental Grand Lodge of Masons, a lavish 1866 Second Empire-style edifice that is now part of the Tremont Plaza Hotel, on St. Paul Place. The building, designed by Peabody Institute architect Edmund G. Lind and expanded by Joseph Evans Sperry in 1909, was rescued from demolition and lavishly restored as meeting and event space in the late 1990s.

For many years the family lived on fashionable North Eutaw, and they may have attended Mt. Vernon Place Methodist Episcopal Church, Mount Vernon Place and Charles Street; the minister of that church presided over his funeral service. Ferdinand and Anna Gorgas are buried in Green Mount Cemetery; their two sons rest in Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois.

Dentists I Have Not Known: Dr. Leonidas Wilson Davis

Based on records where his name appears, he preferred to be known as L. Wilson Davis (1862-1947), but Leonidas was his full first name.

Thanks to the thorough work of family historian and cemetery researcher Glenn Wallace, I was able to find Dr. Leonidas Wilson Davis’ grave in Monocacy Cemetery, Beallsville, Montgomery County, Md., and from there, his family history unfolded.

Dr. Davis was the son of Frederick County, Maryland farmer Isaac Howard Davis (1818-1901) and Catherine (Miles) Davis (1822-1897).

L. Wilson Davis was a member of the University of Maryland Dental Department class of 1888, along with Frank Ryland Steel. He set up practice in Baltimore, and married Mary Harrison Griffith, daughter of merchant and Civil War veteran Francis Moore Griffith (1831-1908) and Elizabeth (Dickerson) Griffith of Beallsville, Montgomery County, Md.

Dr. Davis was interested in what became known as orthodontia, as well as the care of teeth as a public health concern. In 1900, he was part of a committee that authored a proposal for a pilot project for the examination of children’s teeth in Maryland schools, and for the education of children in dental hygiene.

Dr. Davis’ brother, Isaac Howard Davis Jr. (1859-1918), also became a dentist as well as an MD. Isaac Davis was part of the University of Maryland Department of Dentistry’s first graduating class in 1884, and was a professor of dentistry at the University of Maryland at the same time as Dr. John C. Uhler and Dr. James H. Harris, succeeding Dr. Harris as professor of Operative and Clinical Dentistry, a position he still held at the time of his death.

According to Ross Kelbaugh’s Directory of Maryland Photographers 1839-1900, Richard Walzl’s studios, where Dr. L. Wilson Harris had his portrait taken, were located at the addresses indicated on the bottom of the cabinet card ca. 1887-1893. This photograph of young Dr. Davis may well have been taken on the occasion of his graduation from dental school in 1888.