Barbour County AlArchives Biographies.....Hamilton M. Weedon May 15 1835 - 
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Ann Anderson alabammygrammy@aol.com May 12, 2004, 10:35 pm

Author: Brant & Fuller (1893)
    HAMILTON M. WEEDON, M. D., was born in Tallahassee, Fla., May 15, 1835. His
grandfather was a Virginian by birth, and held a high rank in the army which
fought for our independence. His father, Dr. Frederick Weedon, was born in
Virginia, October 18, 1784, studied medicine under Dr. Buchanan, of
Philadelphia, and completed his medical education in Europe. He practiced his
profession several years in Baltimore, and served in the army during the war of
1812, as lieutenant-colonel. About the year 1816, he moved to Huntsville, Ala.,
and there was married, shortly after, to Mary Wells Thompson. daughter of a
wealthy planter, who lived near that place. About the year 1827, he moved to
Florida, spent some time in Tallahassee, but moved to St. Augustine in 1835,
where he became much interested in fruit culture. This move to Florida was made
on account of his wife, whose health became feeble, and seemed to require a
warmer climate. She died in St. Augustine, in 1849, and in 1854, he moved to the
Dry Tortugas, to spend the remainder of his days with his daughter, Mrs.
Henrietta Whitehurst, whose husband, Dr. D. W. Whitehurst, was surgeon of the
post. He died there in March, 1857. On the breaking out of the Seminole war, in
1836, he raised a company and entered the service as captain, but soon after
resigned to enter the medical corps as surgeon, and was stationed in St.
Augustine, when the the celebrated Indian chief, Osceola, was brought there a
captive, and confined in Fort Marion. In this case, as in many others similar, a
friendship, bordering on affection, sprang up between the doctor and the famous
captive. The Indian's health gave way under the influence of sorrow,
disappointment and confinement, and the authorities thought it best to send him
to Fort Moultrie, Charleston harbor; at his urgent request, Dr. Weedon was
detached from the army of Florida, and sent with him. He died shortly after he
arrived at Fort Moultrie, but just before his death, he gave to his friend, the
doctor, his clothes, pipe, ear-rings and other trinkets. Of ten children born to
Dr. Frederick and Mary Weedon, Dr. Hamilton M. Weedon was the youngest, except
one who died in infancy. He was taken from Tallahassee to St. Augustine when but
six weeks old, and lived there until he was about eighteen years old, when he
went to Albany, N. Y., and entered the office of Dr. James H. Armesby, professor
of anatomy in the medical college of that city. He received the degree of doctor
of medicine in 1855, and was appointed resident surgeon of the city hospital,
and, on his retirement, in 1857, received a most complimentary letter from the
board of directors, for "able, faithful and efficient service." He also spent
one year as surgeon to the city dispensary in Albany, a place where the poor
people are treated free of any cost whatever. In 1857, he was spending some time
on the Dry Tortugas in search of health and strength, both of which had run down
to minimum, when news was brought that yellow fever had broken out in Key West,
and that the physicians of that place were particularly unfortunate, as the
wives of the only two available physicians had died of it, and one of the
physicians lay at the point of death; he therefore determined to go to Key West
at once, and offer his services to that stricken people, though he had never had
the disease nor had he ever been exposed to it. He escaped without having much
of an attack, if he had it at all, though he was almost constantly in the fever
hospital and on board some affected ship. He served in the United States marine
hospital, and as health officer of the port, for several years. On the breaking
out of the war between the war between the states, impelled by a sense of duty
to his state, he resigned his office of port physician, which was a lucrative
one, went to Tallahassee and entered, as a private, in an artillery company, of
which Robert Gambell was captain. Soon after, he was made assistant surgeon of
the Fourth Florida regiment, and in about sixty days after was made full
surgeon. He served through nearly all of the campaigns of the west under Bragg
add Johnston. Just before the battle of Murfreesboro, he became Gen. William
Preston's brigade surgeon. Shortly after the battle of Chickamauga, he became
chief surgeon of Gen. Breckinringe's division, on the retirement of chief
surgeon, J. F. Heustis. On the retirement of Gen. Breckinridge, Maj-Gen. William
B. Bate took command of the division, and he served with him as chief surgeon of
division until just before the fall of Atlanta, when he was relieved from field
duty and sent to post duty at Eufala, Ala., in July, 1865. Just before the
surrender of Lee, and when Gen. Joseph Johnston's army was in North Carolina, he
was ordered to rejoin that army, but the collapse came before he reached it. He
was paroled at Macon, Ga., and returned at once to Key West, and re-entered the
practice of medicine with a view to make some money, which was necessary in
order to fulfill an engagement of marriage which he had made when stationed in
Eufaula. In the latter part of the year 1865, he returned to Eufaula and married
Mary Elizabeth Christin Young, second daughter of E. B. Young, a merchant of
Eufaula. He retired from active practice a number of years ago, and associated
himself with Mr. George H. Dent in the drug business, under the firm name of
Weedon & Dent. His wife died in 1891. They had eight children; two died in
infancy; six are now living. Of the two girls, one married J. R. Barr, a shoe
merchant, and the other, J. L. Ross, a hardware merchant, both of Eufaula. Dr.
H. M. Weedon, Jr., the eldest son, graduated in medicine in Mobile, and is now
in in New York pursuing his studies at the Polyclinic; Edward B. Weedon, second
son, is a clerk in a drug store; Walter R. Weedon, third son, is a student of
medicine, and Herbert G. Weedon is a school boy, thirteen years old.



Additional Comments:
from "Memorial Record of Alabama" Vol I, p. 468-469

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