Biography of Henry Bacon, Jacksonville, Duval County, FL File contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Nancy Rayburn (naev@earthlink.net). USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or publication by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ****************************************************************************************** Transcribed from: The History of Florida: Past & Present, The Lewis Publishing Co., Vol. II, page 43, 1923. BACON, HENRY, M.D., has been engaged in the practice of his profession in the City of Jacksonville for nearly forty years, and has secure vantage-ground as one of the representative physicians and surgeons of the State of Florida. He is of the fourth generation of the BACON family in the medical profession, and is a scion of fine old Colonial New England ancestry. Doctor BACON was born at St. Marys, Camden County, Georgia, on the 27th of March, 1858, and is a son of Dr. HENRY SADLER BACON and ANNIE M. (O'NEILL) BACON, the former of whom likewise was a native of St. Marys, Georgia, where he was born November 28, 1832, and the latter of whom was born on her father's plantation, New Hope, Nassau County, Florida, November 12, 1834, this old plantation having been familiarly known as the O'NEIL Grant. The marriage of the parents was solemnized November 28, 1855, and they became the parents of four children, two of whom died in infancy, Doctor BACON of this review having been the second child, and a sister, Miss FLORENCE IRENE, likewise being a resident of Jacksonville. Miss BACON was educated in the female college maintained under the auspices of the Protestant Episcopal Church at Winchester, Virginia, in which institution she was a member of the class of 1880. She is now the state correspondent of the Colonial Dames of Florida, and has traced her ancestry on the side of her paternal grandfather to JAMES BLOUNT, who was born in Wales and who came to America in 1635, his death having occurred in 1685. It is through this ancestor that Miss BACON is eligible for affiliation with the Colonial Dames. Dr. HENRY S. BACON received a thorough professional education, as gauged by the standards of his generation, and was engaged in the successful practice of medicine at St. Marys, his native town in Georgia, at the time when the Civil war was precipitated on the nation. He became a lieutenant in a Georgia Confederate regiment, and was in active service first in Florida and next in Virginia. He was eventually transferred to the Medical Corps, with the rank of captain, and later was advanced to the rank of major. After the close of the war he established the family home at Fernandina, Florida, where he engaged in the practice of his profession but his earnest services were soon terminated by his death, on the 12th of August, 1866. His widow long survived him, she having passed to the life eternal on the 2nd of October, 1917, and both were earnest communicants of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Doctor BACON of this review is a lineal descendent of NATHANIEL BACON, who was born at Stratton, Rutlandshire, England, and who came to America about 1649. He joined his uncle, ANDREW BACON, at Hartford, Connecticut, where he became a member of the company organized for the platting of the Town of Mattaseck, now known a Middletown, Connecticut, where he became a prominent and influential citizen and extensive landholder. His name appears on a bronze plate that is attached to a large granite boulder and that gives the names of the founders of Middletown, this memorial being one of special historic interest in the thriving city. Dr. HENRY BACON acquired his earlier education under the effective and solicitous direction of his devoted mother, she having been a woman of superior education, her higher education having been gained in La Grange College, at La Grange, Georgia. Doctor BACON attended the high school in the City of Niles, Michigan, and thereafter continued his studies under private tutorship at Goshen, New York. In preparation for his chosen profession he entered the celebrated Bellevue Hospital Medical College in the City of New York, and in the same he was graduated as a member of the class of 1883, and with the well earned degree of Doctor of Medicine. He further fortified himself by a period of service as an intern in the City Hospital of New York, and in 1885 he engaged in the active general practice of his profession in the City of Jacksonville, Florida, which has since continued the stage of his able and successful service as a physician and surgeon. He served a number of years as a member of the staff of St. Luke's Hospital, a position which he finally resigned. The Doctor was a valued member of the Duval County Board of Health during the yellow fever epidemic of 1888, and at this time, as at all other stages in his career, he manifested a high ideal of professional and personal stewardship. He has served both as president and secretary of Duval County Medical Society, of which he is now one of the veteran members, and is actively identified also with the Florida State Medical Society and the County Medical Society. In 1889 the Doctor received from Governor F. P. FLEMING commission as surgeon general of the State of Florida, with the rank of colonel, and he held this office continuously under six different gubernatorial administrations. He was retired with the rank of brigadier general after nearly twenty-five years' service in the Florida National Guard . He has long controlled a large and representative practice in Jacksonville, and is one of the leading physicians and surgeons of Duval County. The Doctor is a stalwart in the camp of the democratic party, and is an earnest communicant of the Protestant Episcopal Church.