DOCTOR CHARLES SILAS MORTON
The biographies of our grandparents were mostly compiled by their children.
Some of these notes were written in the 1940s when Aunt Mary started compiling data
on the family, and she wrote Uncle Marshall for his recollections.
Charles Silas Bigelow (Biglow) was born June 18, 1832, at Hampden-Sidney, Prince
Edward Co., Virginia. He had his name legally changed to Morton, the maiden name of
his maternal grandmother, in the Appomattox Court House April 23, 1861. Why did he
change it? This has caused interesting speculation for many years.
M.M.D. I think that the reason papa changed his name from Bigelow to Morton was
that in those critical times he did not like a Yankee name, but I am not certain
about this. Aunt Fannie told me that when he was young he was thin and gawky,
and very shy, and was much teased about being "Big-low".
I seem to remember hearing that some Bigelows were abolitionists in the North
and that grandfather did not like the association. Of course, he was born and
raised in the South, and heard much of his Morton ancestors, and the distinguished
background from New England must have seemed remote to him. He continued to live
with his Bigelow parents, and when they became old, he took them and his two Bigelow
sisters into his home to live. It has always seemed that the difference in names
would have caused many awkward situations, but Ihave never heard this mentioned.
The family continued to write to their New England relatives. I don't remember even
knowing that Grandfather changed his name until I was in my teens. Mother told me
that they never mentioned it to their father.
M.M. When papa first started to college, he wanted to be a Civil Engineer
and took some of the courses, but being an only son, and it being in the early
days of the railroads, Grandpa and Grandma Bigelow felt that he would get way
out West somewhere, and they would lose touch with him, so they persuaded him to
give this up, and then he decided to take up medicine as his profession.
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He graduated from Hampden-Sidney College with an A.B. degree in 1851, and from
the University of Virginia in 1854 with an M.D. degree. From there he went to a
Catholic hospital in Baltimore for two years internship, and then he had one year
as an intern in a Philadelphia hospital. There is some difference of opinion as
to his next move, but his obituary states that he went to Pamplin, Va. (only a few
miles from his home) to begin the practice of medicine.
At the beginning of the Civil War he joined the Red House Volunteers and was
made a lieutenant, but as surgeons were badly needed, he was induced to go into the
10th Georgia and then the 57th North Carolina Regiment of Infantry, Early's Brigade,
as surgeon. In this capacity he was at the Battle of Gettysburg. My husand and I
found the marker for this regiment side-by-side with the marker for my husband's
grandfather, who was in the Dole's Cook Brigade of Georgia. Grandfather's Civil
War letters range from the almost carefree interest in the War in the earliest ones
to the struggle to get enough food to eat in the last letters.
M.M. Most of the Confederate soldiers from Pamplin and vicinity, including
Uncle Van Gilliam, were in Pickett's divisions and in his great charge at
Gettysburg. I often enjoyed hearing survivors and papa recount their experi-
ences.
How deeply the horror of the war affected this sensitive man is reflected in
this note:
M.M. Papa told that when Lee's Army was retreating from Farmville to Appomat-
tox, he turned off where the roads forked at Walker's Church and went home. On
the way through the body of woods he was suddenly seized with such a revulsion
of feeling at all the bloodshed and suffering that he had seen that he threw
his surgical instruments as far as he could, and never went back to look for
them. From that time he never intended to operate again.
The story of the Confederate's lack of medical supplies, amputations with anes-
thetics, and the infections that set in have many times, as we will show later.
M.M.D. After the war he went back home to Happy Valley and feeling that his
aging parents and their two daughters (one of whom had been terribly burned as
a small child and was mentally undeveloped) needed him there, he decided to
practice medicine in that neighborhood.
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Dr. Morton must have been there only a short time, for he went to Salisbury,
North Carolina, to practice medicine in 1866. The next few years reflect the rest-
less spirit, the search for something different in life, as he remained in North
Carolina for only a year. In 1867 he was back in Appomattox County.
M.M. He and grandpa (Silas) became interested in writing life insurance which
was just beginning to start in the country, and they travelled around over a
good deal of the territory, mainly on horseback, in this occupation. Papa was
on one of these horseback rides with gran'pa when his horse jumped sideways
suddenly, throwing him so that his head struck a rock ledge, leaving that large
scar on his head that we were all familiar with. He may have done a little
practice in this period, but I think that, in addition to his work, he helped
to run the plantation. Aunt Fannie told me that there were thirty able-bodied
slaves, together with women and children, at Happy Valley before the War, so
this was a large farm which now needed his help.
In 1869 Charles Silas Morton went to Richmond, Virginia, where he became Asso-
ciate Editor of the old Richmond "Whig" which became the "Richmond Dispatch" and
later the "Times-Dispatch".
M.M. He had always had a decided yearning to be a writer. Papa was in Richmond
when the famous disaster happened in the State Capitol, when the balcony fell,
killing a great many people. I recall that he said that it was only by chance
that he was not in the disaster personally. He started down there, but found
the crowd so great that he could not get a seat, so he went back to his office.
In a few minutes he heard great excitement in the streets, looked out and saw
crowds rushing in that direction and found that the gallery floor had collapsed
and brought on a terrible disaster.
I quote from Farrar's Old Virginia Homes Along the James:
In 1870 the east gallery gave way in the room where the Supreme Court of Appeals
was in session. This room was located above the Old Hall of the House of Delegates.
When the gallery and everyone in it fell onto the floor of the already crowded court
room, the floor of that room also gave way, and everybody and everything in the
upper room were hurled into the Old Hall below. This was the famous Capitol Disas-
ter in which sixty-two people were killed and 251 were injured.
Grandfather went back to Pamplin in 1870 and took up the practice of medicine
again. He was married Nov. 25, 1871, to Mary Lavalette Gilliam who had been only a
child when he went off to war.
M.M.D. My understanding is that their first home was near the Gilliam place,
the moderate size farm and home that we later knew as the Bristow place. Here
Charlie was born, but I am not sure whether I was born there. I have heard mama
describe her loneliness and fear in that bare and forlorn house, whenever the
wind blew. They must have then bought the house in Pamplin, where we were all
raised, and where our grandparents moved about the time I was born. Papa bought
the house in Pamplin from Dr. Mathews, trading him alot in Norfolk for it. The
Monticello Hotel was later built on that site in Norfolk.
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Uncle John likes to tell that when his grandfather's first child was born, he
wrote a glowing account in his Journal, but by the time that the birth of a child
in their family was no longer a novelty (there were ten children), he would make
this simple statement, "Lav had a baby."
Henry Morton: I am sorry that I cannot recall childhood things as do Mary and
John. They remember things that I have no recollection of. I know that we had
a happy childhood, mingled with extreme poverty, but as every other family had
the same problems, we just took it as a way of life. Papa was so occupied
trying to make a living for his growing family that he had little time to give
us, except that he read Mark Twain stories to us and seemed to enjoy them more
than we did. He would often have to stop reading to break out with a big laugh.
Papa believed in good eating habits, being a doctor, and would laboriously chew
his food before swallowing. I recall how Eva would carefully watch him and then
say, "Papa, you chewed that twenty times."
The minister who wrote his obituary, "J.A.P.", had this to say about his medical
practice:
Dr. Morton was a skilled physician, and until the infirmities of old age made
it impossible for him to continue his work, he had a large practice. He was one
who never thought of self when he could do others good, and a great deal of his
practice was done for those from whom he expected no remuneration. My uncles told
me that grandfather had a little pharmacy and people were always coming in and
describing their ailments. Dr. Morton would examine them, make up a prescription
for them, and when they asked the price of the treatment and medicine, he would say,
"Well, do you think a quarter is too much?"
M.M. Our father, the greatest character I ever knew, devoted forty-five years
of his life to that noblest of callings, now fast disappearing, the old-school
country doctor. With complete disregard to whether he would ever receive pay or
not, and at all hours of day or night, he answered every call of the sick or
injured in the little village of Pamplin and a wide area around it. With his
broad education, wide experience, and a mind that reasoned things out, he dis-
carded many old set medical theories, and later proved himself far ahead of his
times in the practice of medicine. While he would call in a surgeon from Lynch-
burg for internal operations that could wait, he handled without regular surgi-
cal instruments great numbers of emergency operations.
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During my vacations while at college, he taught me how to administer chloroform,
then mainly used, and I often handled this while he operated. A typical case I
recall was of a negro brought in from the country who had both his feet frostbitten
so badly that gangrene was setting in, and only amputation would save his life. He
was laid out on a table upstairs over a negro restaurant, and with an ordinary hand
saw and sharp knife, disinfected with either dilute carbolic acid or boiling water,
while I gave the chloroform, made a perfect amputation of both feet above the
ankles. The negro had some one bring him two blocks of soft pine, and while the
wounds were healing, he whittled out two feet and leg portions measured to his
height. He fitted these himself and with shoes on them, was little handicapped in
anything he did thereafter.
The consensus of opinion was that grandfather was far ahead of his time in his
thinking and in his medical practice. He and another doctor kept up a spirited
controversy in letters to the Times Dispatch. He argued that the mind had great
influence over the performance of the body, and the other doctor insisted that mind
and body operated independently.
James H. Franklin had these words for Dr. Morton in Mary Lavalette's obituary:
Her life was enriched by her marriage to a princely man. Her husband with his
superb character, splendid preparation, alert mind, broad interests and generous
heart soon became a beloved physician in that region, and perhaps the first citizen
of his community.
The writer of his own obituary also said this:
He was a Christian gentleman of the highest type. His very face and manner
betokened his gentility of breeding, nobility of soul, and sweetness of spirit. To
know him, even for a short time, was to feel an unusual charm of personality. He
was a man who really made friends and kept them. He was truly a select man of the
old school, educated, refined, polite and gentle. He commanded the respect, won
the love, and inspired the confidence of men.
Although I did not know grandfather, the above words could just as easily have
been written about his daughter Eva, my mother.
I have a copy of a Blakely, Ga., paper which does not bear the date, reporting
the following:
On Friday afternoon Dr. C. S. Morton of Virginia, the father of Mrs. J. E.
Martin, delivered an address on Stonewall Jackson to the Daughters of the Confede-
racy at the Masonic Hall. The Doctor served with the Confederate Army as surgeon
throughout the great struggle, and being a close observer, and a gentleman of fine
literary attainment, was fully prepared to give an interesting and entertaining
address on the great leader, whom the matchless Lee claimed was his right arm. The
Doctor received the closest attention throughout the address, and it was greatly
enjoyed by those present.
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J.A.P. He was a true Southerner and never for a moment wavered in his loyalty
to the South. His domestic life was happy and beautiful. He was a devoted husband
and father, and was, in turn, all but the idol of his family. Of him we think that
it can truly be said, "The world is better off for his having lived in it."
M.M. There are many other completely successful cases I recall, but there was
one outstandingly complicated one when I was a boy. Clarence Durphey, a play-
mate, was in the clay pipe factory at Pamplin, which was run with many belts and
pulleys by one big steam engine. In some way his sleeve got caught in a belt
and his hand and arm were wrapped around a small pulley. Not only did it break
both bones in the forearm, and the bone in the upper arm, but before anyone
could get to the big engine to shut it down, the hand and arm were badly burned
by friction. It seemed impossible to do anything but amputate just below the
shoulder but the boy cried and begged so hard to save his arm that papa decided
to try. With infinite pains, covering a long period of time, the arm was saved.
While, of course, the burns left his elbow stiff and fingers twisted, the boy
could use it in many ways as long as he lived, and never ceased to be grately
for it.
M.M.D. Eva Martin recalled that papa operated for cancer on the breast on Ida
Davis, a woman who lived near Pamplin. She never had any recurrence of that
disease, and lived to a ripe old age. Ida started a custom that became quite
popular in Appomatix. She wrote to the Old Soldier's Home in Richmond and
offered to share her small farm with any man who would marry her. The man who
accepted was a decent, kind person, and they seemed happy together.
M.M. Also could be mentioned our brother Henry's foot. As a boy he was in the
woods on top of a heavily loaded wagon of tanbark. The wagon ran over the end
of a log, throwing him off, and the iron-tired wheel ran over the arch of his
foot, badly displacing and crushing the bones. There were no X-rays then, so
papa could only work from a knowledge of the bones and feeling them. The arch
was finally left higher than normal, shortening the foot, but through life it
has been only a slight handicap to Henry. One exception was in World War I.
He promptly volunteered, but when he took his physical examination, he was
turned down because of his handicap. Determined to do his part in some way, he
joined the Army YMCA and served in the immediate rear of our troops through
France and Germany.
Dr. Taliaferro, his partner later in life, not long before he retired, told me
this story. "I had a case far out in the country, a boy with an infected leg. I
asked Dr. Morton to go with me to see him. He decided it must be amputated, but we
had no instruments and it was too late in the day. I suddenly said, "My God, Dr.
Morton, I've left my instruments!" Dr. Morton quietly said, "Well, it is too late
to go back, we must do the best we can." When we got to the house, the doctor took
over. He told the father to heat a big pot of water in the yard and bring the best
butcher knife and saw he had. He boiled the saw and knife, and with these crude
instruments performed as neat and skilled an amputation as I ever saw. Not once did
he show the slightest sign of nervousness."
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M.M. About 1909, all the children except Elsie and Finlay being grown and
having left home, it was decided to sell our old home in Pamplin and move to a
rented house in Lynchburg, so that these two could have better schooling. One
day papa took the Southern train to a small station below Lynchburg (Lawyers,
Va.) to see about the possibility of buying a small tract of timber that he
might make a little money on. While waiting for the train to bring him back,
he went over to a little store across from the station. Coming back to the
station he was struck by a fast freight. He died almost instantly. His body
was brought to Pamplin and buried in the Presbyterian churchyard. At his
funeral people in the village and for miles around attended practically en
masse, showing the great love and respect that they had for him. Probably a
majority of these people had been brought into the world by him.
I recently showed Uncle John the obituary which mother had kept. I was intri-
gued by this sentence: "He leaves a devoted Christian wife and eight children,
all of whom are professing Christians and members of the church, except one."
Uncle John asked who wrote the article, and when I gave him the initials, he
said, "That was the preacher. He was always after me to join the church, and
even kept whispering to me at the funeral, asking me to join. I was forty years
old when I did join the church!"
Dr. Charles Silas Bigelow Morton died July 28, 1909.
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