Doddridge County, West Virginia Biography of LATHROP RUSSELL CHARTER, M. D. This file was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 643-644 LATHROP RUSSELL CHARTER, M. D. A professional serv- ice of over sixty years and the relationship of a kindly and helpful citizen explain the grateful memory in which the late Doctor Charter is held in the community of West Union and Doddridge County. It is significant in his case and that of other similarly useful men that no long biography can be presented, since his life was a long succession of the acts of kindness incident to a working routine that varied only in detail, not in general character. Doctor Charter, was born at Springfield, Massachusetts, October 10, 1816. of an old Connecticut family. His grand- father, John Charter. Jr., married Sarah Russell in 1777, and both were listed in the first census of the United States made in 1790. John Charter, Jr., served in a Lexington Alarm Regiment at the beginning of the Revo- lutionary war. He and his wife were the parents of nine children. The father of Dtoctor Charter was Lemuel Char- ter, who was born at Ellington, Tolland County, Connecticut, May 7, 1784, and died at Elwood, Illinois, October 20, 1862. The mother, Elizabeth Allen, was born at East Wind- sor, Connecticut, November 8, 1789, and died at Elwood, Illinois, February 11, 1870. Lathrop Russell Charter lived at Springfield until he was eighteen years of age and then for one year was employed at Hartford, Connecticut. In the meantime his parents removed to Otsego County, New York, and when he re- joined his parents he engaged in teaching. He was liberally educated for his time and generation. He taught nine terms of school and in the meantime read medicine with Doctors Curtis and Johnson of Cooperstown, New York. One of his cherished memories of this period of his life was the friendship he formed with James Fenimore Cooper, the American novelist. During 1840-41 Doctor Charter attended medical lectures at Albany, New York, and then at Wood- stock, Vermont, where he was graduated in 1841. One of the signers of his diploma of graduation from the College of Medicine at Woodstock was H. H. Childs, at that time president of the college and later a governor of Massa- chusetts. Doctor Charter subsequently took a medical course at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In the Fall of 1841 he began the practice of medicine at Guilford, New York, and two years later removed to Alleghany County of the same state. In the fall of 1845 he came to West Union, West Virginia, and a few months later went back to bring his family, making these three trips in a buggy. Through his liberal education and high attainment, soon after locating at West Union, he had all the work he could do as a physician and surgeon over a wide expanse of country around that town. He performed his professional labors at a time when none of the modern facilities were available, such as good roads, the telephone, the corner drug store, but he was a very conscientious doctor and many a time when called out to attend the sick drove miles over the hardest kind of roads and in inclement weather, never giving the matter of remuneration a thought. The manner in which he en- dured the hardships of his work and his true loyalty to all professional obligations indicated that he drew heavily from those inner resources of manhood that are the foundation of religion. He was one of the founders of the Methodist Episcopal Church at West Union and for many years was a generous supporter of the church and its program of activities. In politics he was a democrat. He was the third superintendent of schools in Doddridge County. He also officiated as mayor of West Union, as magistrate, United States Commissioner and for fifteen years was United States Pension Examiner. He was emin- ently successful as a physician, and became a charter mem- ber of the West Virginia Medical Society and a member of the American Medical Association. At the time of his death he was the oldest member of each of these bodies. Doctor Charter died September 28, 1909, in his ninety- third year. His was a long life, and his usefulness con- tinned almost until the hour of hia death. Doctor Charter was twice married. In New York on October 12, 1843, he married Miss Lucia M. Hale, who died February 9, 1867. Six children were born to this union, the four surviving the father being A. J. Charter, Dr. J. H. Charter, Mrs. Joseph Brown and C. A. Charter. On Nov- ember 10, 1870, Doctor Charter married Elizabeth Fraser, who survives him at the age of seventy-seven. She became the mother of six children, five now living: Florence, un- married; Lucia, wife of G. W. Bland and the mother of two children: Elizabeth B., wife of Ray Staley, and Russell C. Bland; Lathrop R., Jr.; Tula, unmarried; and James G., also unmarried.