BIOGRAPHY OF FRANK V. LANGFITT, HARRISON CO,
WEST VIRGINIA

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Submitted by Valerie Crook
(vfcrook@earthlink.net)


The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II,
pg. 583-584
Harrison

FRANK VALENTINE LANGFITT, M. D., has made in his
profession a record of worthy and successful achievement
that has fully justified his choice of vocation ,and he is
numbered among the representative physicians and surgeons
of Harrison County, where he is engaged in practice at
Clarksburg, with office at 505 Prunty Building.

Doctor Langfitt was born on a farm in Doddridge County,
this state, March 24, 1883, and is a son of Valentine and
Caroline (Davis) Langfitt. The father was born in Brooke
County, West Virginia, (then Virginia), April 14, 1833, and
died in Doddridge County, April 1, 1904. He was a son of
John and Martha (Farquer) Langfitt, the former of whom
was born either in what is now West Virginia or in Pennsyl-
vania, in 1776, he having been a pioneer in Brooke County
and having thence removed to Doddridge County, where he
remained until his death, at the age of seventy-three years.
Family tradition has it that two brothers named Langfitt
came from Scotland to America in the Colonial period, one
settling in Pennsylvania and the other in Virginia, the West
Virginia family being descendant from the Pennsylvania
branch. Mrs. Martha (Farquer) Langfitt was born in what
is now West Virginia, in 1787. She was killed by a rolling
log which she had dislodged while attempting to extract a
stick that was beneath it, and her husband likewise met an
accidental death, from injuries received when he was thrown
from a horse.

The mother of Doctor Langfitt was born in Doddridge
County, June 30, 1836, and there she passed her entire life,
her death having occurred June 26,1920. She was a daughter
of William P. Davis, who was born in the part of Virginia
now constituting West Virginia, and who was a prosperous
farmer of Doddridge County at the time of his death, in 1865,
at the age of seventy-one years. Valentine and Caroline
(Davis) Langfitt became the parents of twelve children:
Elizabeth J., wife of Lewis Bond, deceased; Silas W., a banker;
R. Belle, wife of Rev. M. A. Summers; Columbia L., wife of
James Jones, deceased; Ila M., wife of J. E. Trainer, deceased;
John H., a banker; Samuel E., a dentist; W. Creed, a traveling
salesman; Effie M., deceased; Bruce B., a glass manufacturer;
Mona G., wife of Dr. C. L. Parks; and Frank V., subject of
this sketch. The father was one of the substantial exponents
of farm industry in Doddridge County, and represented the
same in the West Virginia Legislature. He was a democrat
in politics, and he and his wife were zealous members of the
Baptist Church. He acquired a large landed estate, and
was a man whose life was guided and governed by the highest
principles of integrity and honor. Of alert mentality, he
became a man of broad information and mature judgment,
and he was well fortified for leadership in community senti-
ment and action.

Reared on the home farm, Doctor Langfitt early began to
assist in its work, and after attending the rural schools he
continued his studies in turn in Salem College and the West
Virginia Wesleyan College. His pre-medical course was
obtained in the University of West Virginia, and in 1907 he
was graduated in the medical department of the University
of Maryland, in Baltimore. After thus receiving his degree
of Doctor of Medicine he further fortified himself by a year
of service as an interne in the Maryland General Hospital
at Baltimore, and in 1908 he engaged in the active general
practice of his profession at Salem, Harrison County, West
Virginia, where he built up a large and successful practice
and where he remained until October, 1918, when he was
commissioned first lieutenant in the Medical Corps of the
United States Army, he having volunteered his services
when the nation became involved in the World war. He
remained at Camp Greenleaf, Georgia, until December, 1918,
when he received his honorable discharge. He then passed
the following six months as assistant resident surgeon at
St. Agnes Hospital in the City of Baltimore, and thereafter
remained one year as resident surgeon in this institution.
In 1920 the Doctor returned to Harrison County and estab-
lished his residence at Clarksburg, the county seat, where he
has since continued in an active practice that is largely in
the surgical branch of his profession. He is a member of the
staff of physicians at the Mason Hospital in this city and
is actively identified with the Harrison County Medical
Society, the West Virginia State Medical Society and the
American Medical Association. Doctor Langfitt is aligned
in the ranks of the democratic party, is a Knight Templar
Mason and has extended his Masonic affiliations to include
the Mystic Shrine.

The year 1913 recorded the marriage of Doctor Langfitt
and Miss Veda Davis, daughter of Owen T. and Zeta (Sum-
merville) Davis, and the two children of this union are June
Leanore and Frank Valentine, Jr.