William David McWhorter
Class of 1860
William David McWhorter was born in Pontonoc, Mississippi December 27, 1838. His parents Rev. William H. and Margaret M. Kyle McWhorter lived in Bachelor’s Retreat, South Carolina but Margaret went to her family home in Mississippi for the birth of her first of five children. At age nineteen, McWhorter began the study of medicine under his preceptor Dr. Isaac Branch. After attending the University of Nashville Medical College for one year, McWhorter was accepted at the Medical College of the State of South Carolina. His professors would include Julian John Chisolm, Eli Geddings, John Edwards Holbrook and Jacob Ford Prioleau. In March of 1860, McWhorter received his medical degree. He then moved to Walhalla, Pickens District, South Carolina, where he opened his first medical practice.
WcWhorter enlisted in the Confederate Army for three years or the duration of the war on July 20, 1861 at Camp Pickens, Sandy Springs, Anderson District, South Carolina. He was a private in Company A of the 1st Regiment South Carolina Rifles (Orr’s Rifles) and four days later he was assigned to hospital duty. This extra duty added twenty five cents per day to his private’s salary of eleven dollars per month. In September of 1861, on Sullivan’s Island, he would become a regimental hospital steward. September of 1862 found McWhorter tending sick and wounded soldiers following the Battle of Chantilly (Ox Hill) in Fairfax County, Virginia. There, McWhorter met a volunteer nurse in a field hospital who would later become his wife. After spending the rest of the war in Virginia, McWhorter was paroled on April 11, 1865.
After the war McWhorter returned to South Carolina. He continued to write the nurse he had met in Virginia. McWhorter then moved to Providence Township, Fairfax County, Virginia and on November 27, 1866 married Mary Jones Lee Millan. McWhorter became a respected physician in Fairfax and labored at a busy and arduous medical practice. As a country doctor he was often required to travel up to 50 miles a day. Also typical of country doctors during this time, house calls paid very little in the way of cash. McWhorter was able to supplement his income by working for Fairfax County as Inspector of Jail where he would diagnose and treat inmates.
During May of 1884, the Fairfax County Medical Society was organized and McWhorter was chosen as its first President. In the early 1890‘s McWhorter closed his practice and moved to Washington, D.C.
Biography prepared by Dean Moss McCracken, Historian/Researcher
Image Credit: Henriques, Peter R. Fairfax County Medical Society 1884-1934: Early Years and Early Leaders. Fairfax, VA: Fairfax County Medical Society, 1984. 72-77.