OBIT: J. W. C. O’Neal, 1913, Gettysburg, Adams County, PA

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Venerable Physician Dies at Gettysburg – Will Be Buried Here

Dr. J. W. C. O’Neal, one of Pennsylvania’s oldest physicians and a former resident of Hanover, 
died at his home in Gettysburg, at 11:50 p.m. Thursday, April 24.  On the Tuesday previous Dr. 
O’Neal celebrated his 92d birthday anniversary.

Dr. O’Neal’s excellent health with which he was endowed during a long and active life continued 
almost to the end and he was able to be about until a few weeks before his death.

Dr. O’Neal was succesful not only in his profession but in his affairs of business.  He was 
public spirited and progressive, and was held in highest esteem by a wide circle of friends and 
acquaintances.  He was widely known in the state through his membership to prominent 
organizations.  He was uniformly courteous – the typical “old school gentleman.”

Dr. O’Neal was born in Fairfax County, Virginia, of Irish and American parentage.  He received 
his classical education at Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, and he later took up the study of 
medicine with Dr. John Swope, of Taneytown, and N. R. Smith, of Baltimore.  He attended the 
medical department of the University of Maryland and received his degree of doctor of medicine 
from that institution in 1844.  In the spring of that year he settled in Hanover which he made 
his home for five years, moving to Baltimore in 1849.  He went to Gettysburg in 1863 and made 
his home there ever since that time.

He rendered valuable service to wounded soldiers at both Antietam and Gettysburg and enjoyed a 
large practice in that town and the county.  He was one of the founders of the Adams County 
Medical Society, its first treasurer and later its president.  Dr. O’Neal was a member of the 
Pennsylvania Medical Association.  He contributed many valuable articles to medical journals 
and was widely recognized as a physician of ability.

For [t]hree years during his residence in Baltimore Dr. O’Neal was a commissioner of public 
schools in that city and during that period was vaccine physician of the Twentieth Ward.

In 1877 and 1886 he was delegate from Pennsylvania to the Maryland State Medical Society; and 
for many years he was a member of the Board of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, taking office 
in 1883 and serving continuously for almost a quarter of a century.  He was one of the 
delegates to the National Medical Association from this state in 1884 and his membership in 
that body dated from that time.  He also represented this state in the Thirteenth National 
Conference of Charities and Correction at St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1886.

Dr. O’Neal and Miss Ellen Wirt, daughter of the late Henry Wirt, of this place, were married in 
1847.  Mrs. O’Neal died a number of years ago and he leaves five children – Mrs. Mary Crapster, 
of Taneytown; Mrs. J. T. Huddle, of Washington, D. C.; Dr. Walter H. O’Neal, Miss Katie O’Neal 
and Miss Annie O’Neal, of Gettysburg.

Funeral service at his late home at 10:30 o’clock Monday morning conducted by Rev. Dr. T. J. 
Barkley.  The body will be brought to Hanover on the 1:36 p.m. train over the Western Maryland 
Railway and private interment made on the family lot in Mt. Olivet cemetery.

The Hanover Herald – Saturday, May 3, 1913