Multnomah County OR Archives Biographies.....Black, M. D., Robert Grant September 16, 1860 - April 16, 1922 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/or/orfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com June 1, 2010, 12:26 am Source: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Pages 391 - 392 Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company DR. ROBERT GRANT BLACK, M. D., long a prominent representative of the medical profession in the Pacific northwest, had been successfully engaged in practice at Vancouver, Washington, for a quarter of a century when he passed away April 16, 1922, in the sixty-second year of his age. He was born in Abingdon, Washington county, Virginia, September 16, 1860, a son of William Daniel Webster and Mary Nellie (Grubb) Black, natives of the same county. The paternal grandparents were also born in Washington county, Virginia, and the ancestry of the family is traced back to John Black, the great-great- grandfather of Dr. Black, who came to America from England in the early part of the seventeenth century and located at Blacksburg, Virginia. In the maternal line the strain is Welsh. The Grubb family was also planted on American soil early in the seventeenth century, the family home being established on the banks of the Delaware, where lived Nicholas Grubb, the great-grandfather of Dr. Black. The great-grandfather in the paternal line was John Black, a soldier of the Revolutionary war who served under General Washington. William Young, the great-grandfather, and Nicholas Grubb, the great grandfather of Dr. Black, were soldiers of the War of 1812. The parents of Dr. Black came to Oregon in 1888, locating at McMinnville, where the mother died in February, 1898. The father passed away in July, 1910, at the residence of his son, Rev. James H. Black, a sketch of whom appears on another page of this work. For a period of twenty-two years, or from 1888 until his death, he had been actively engaged in merchandising. Robert G. Black spent his youthful days at the old family home in Virginia and acquired his early education in the public schools, while subsequently he attended King College of Bristol, Tennessee, for two and one- half years. He then took up the study of medicine under Dr. William Phillips of Wallace, Virginia, who directed his reading for a year, after which he entered the medical department of the University of Virginia at Richmond. Thereafter he pursued a course in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Baltimore, Maryland, which on the 15th of March, 1886, conferred upon him the degree of M. D. During the succeeding year Dr. Black practiced medicine at Wallace and then came to the west, arriving in Portland, Oregon, on the 10th of May, 1887. He then traveled over portions of Oregon and Washington in search of a location and finally settled at Castle Rock, Cowlitz county, Washington, where he arrived on the 18th of June, 1887. He remained in successful practice there until February, 1897, when he removed to Vancouver, Washington, where he followed his chosen profession to the time of his death twenty-five years later. His work was attended with excellent success when viewed from both a professional and financial standpoint. He never specialized but continued in general practice and broadened his knowledge by careful perusal of the medical journals and best medical literature. He became a charter member of the Washington State Medical Society and was one of twenty who at the end of twenty years remained as continuous members. This organization was formed in the Tacoma Hotel at Tacoma in 1889 and absorbed the Territorial Medical Society at that time. Dr. Black also became a charter member of the Clark County Medical Society and was one of the organizers of the first medical society of Cowlitz county. In the field of professional service he had made continuous progress, gleaning from comprehensive study and research and from practical experience valuable truths in connection with the science of medicine and surgery. On the 30th of November, 1899, Dr. Black was married at Chehalis, Lewis county, Washington, to Miss Josephine Rankin, a daughter of William Rankin, whose father came to Oregon in 1849 and settled in the Rogue River valley. He had formerly lived in Illinois. Dr. and Mrs. Black had two children, Robert Harvey and Martha Leona, the latter now the wife of Andrew V. King of Portland. By a former marriage Dr. Black also had a son, William James, who resides on a ranch in Clackamas county, Oregon. Fraternally Dr. Black was connected with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks at Vancouver, the Woodmen of the World, the Improved Order of Red Men and the Phylothesmians, a college fraternity. His political support was given to the republican party and he made a splendid record as city and county health officer, having been appointed by the city in 1909 and by the county in 1908. He was also a member of the board of pension examiners for a number of years and while in Cowlitz county, Washington, he served for three terms as county coroner — by appointment for one term and by election for two terms. He put forth earnest effort to secure advanced medical and sanitary legislation in his state. Because of his splendid attributes he won the respect and good will of the entire community in which he loved and labored, as well as a large circle of warm and loyal friends who deeply regretted his passing. 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